Who Could Ask For Any More? - Epilogue - July
Title: Who Could Ask For Any More?
Part: Epilogue
Word Count: 5,449
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five (i) | Part Five (ii) | Part Six
~
Six months later, July 25th 2011...
“Joe, seriously, I can’t do this by myself.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do about it? I’ve never used gel in my hair. Ever. Emma, can you do his hair for him?”
“I don’t know how to do boy hair,” Emma shrugs helplessly, toying with one of the shoulder straps on her dress. “You’re gonna have to get Justin to do it, Hun.”
Jesse turns away from the mirror on the inside of his closet door and slams it shut in frustration. “But Andrew’s up there, I don’t want him to see me yet.”
“Dude, it’s not like you’re getting married or anything,” Joe laughs as he ties his tie. “It’s just Prom.”
“And hasn’t he seen you in this outfit before?” Emma adds.
“Fine, I’ll get Justin to do it.”
Never in his life did Jesse expect to get bested by a pot of hair gel, he screws the lid back on and pockets it as he leaves his and Joe’s dorm. Another thing he’s never expected? The fact that he‘s going to Prom tonight. Not only is he going, but he has a date. Not just any old date, but Andrew Garfield. Crazy, awesome stuff like this seems to have become almost commonplace in his life nowadays. To think, this time last year he‘d figured that he‘d be spending his Prom night in his room with his cats, watching Crimes & Misdemeanours for the fiftieth time. How things change.
Now, over the last few months, Andrew has been using this operant conditioning method on Justin to keep him from blasting the albums of 90s boy bands. Justin receives a harshly thrown cushion to the head each time that he goes within five feet of their CD player with a Backstreet Boys, Hanson, or 98 Degrees album in hand. It is because of this that Jesse approaches Andrew and Justin’s dorm and hears the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Stadium Arcadium, pouring -at a relatively low level- out from behind the door as apposed to MMMBop or something equally shudder-inducing.
On a regular day, Jesse would just walk straight in, but today, he knocks. “Hey, is it alright if I come in? Are you guys decent?”
It‘s Andrew that answers. “We’re fine, come on in, Beautiful.”
Jesse walks in to find Justin completely tuxedoed up -sans jacket- and Andrew in a suit that is 100% black. Black pants, black shirt, black tie, black jacket, black shoes. Not that Jesse’s complaining, no way. Andrew looks -and Jesse never thought he’d use the word in a sense other than the literal, but- Andrew looks… hot. It seems that Andrew is thinking the same about Jesse, who’s wearing that outfit Justin had bought him all those months ago, with the blue shirt and the slim fit pants and stuff. Andrew’s looking at him in a way that makes Jesse feel exposed in, well, in a good way, if that’s possible.
He grins. “Well, I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. You look gorgeous in that.”
Andrew kisses him.
“I will forever be taking credit for that suit,” Justin says, checking out his newly shaved hair in the mirror, as if a haircut like that could look different from one day to the next.
“Thank you. You guys look great too.” Jesse involuntarily brings his hands up to his face to hide the tail end of his blushing. He looks at Andrew. “Though, don’t stand by a black wall, or black drapes, or you know, in the dark, because we’d only be able to see your head.”
Justin turns around swiftly, pointing at nothing in particular. “Like Floating Head Doctor.”
Since the ‘fire-breathing’ fiasco from the camping trip, relations between Armie, Josh and Justin are at an all time high. Justin’s always over at their dorm these days, and he’s just as into sitcoms as Armie now, hence the shameless Scrubs reference.
Jesse frowns at him, not quite sure what to say. “Uh, yeah exactly.” He turns back to Andrew, wringing his hands nervously. “Hey, um, are we gonna be allowed to go this thing, like… together?”
Andrew sits down, making himself comfortable on his own bed. “What, as a couple?”
“Yeah.”
“Jess, of course we’re allowed to go together, it’s the twenty-first century. As far as I know there are at least four other gay couples here, and there’s a pair of lesbians in the grade below. They don’t care about that stuff here.” Andrew leans forward, grabs one of Jesse’s hands and kisses the back of it with all the sincerity in the world. “We’ll be fine.”
“Oh okay, I was just worried, you know.”
“Well, don‘t be,” Andrew looks up at him, smiling radiantly, and everything‘s okay again. Andrew Garfield is an emotional alchemist, except, instead of turning other metals into gold, he turns Jesse’s neurotic anxiety into contentment and a general feeling of everything’s-going-to-be-alright. It’s a beautiful thing, and Jesse feels a whole lot better for it.
“So why are you here so early any way?” Andrew asks, pulling Jesse a little further forward. “Not that I don’t want you here.”
“I need Justin to do my hair, I can’t get it to go right.”
“Your hair looks fine as it is, I like it this way.” Jesse gives him a stern look, as if to say, Haven’t we been over this before? Which they of course have. Andrew backtracks, chuckles. “But, but I like it when Justin does it too. Sorry.”
“Come over here then, Shortstack,” Justin calls.
Jesse does as he’s told, produces the gel from his pocket, and Justin gets to work in the same fashion as before, biting his lip, brow furrowed in concentration -and nope, to Jesse, that feeling of having someone else’s gel soaked hands in his hair is never going to cease to feel weird.
“So, uh, who’s your date?” Jesse asks, rolling his eyes upwards in a vain attempt to see what Justin’s doing up there.
From behind, Andrew says, “don’t bother asking, he’s not telling anyone.”
“It’s on a need-to-know basis.” Justin smiles like he’s got a secret, like he’s got a master plan tucked up his sleeve.
Jesse frowns again, pouts like a five year old. “But I do need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m nosy.”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” Justin takes his hands back and rubs them together as he surveys his work. “Okay, I think you’re done.”
Jesse doesn‘t bother checking how it looks, because this is Justin, God amongst amateur hair stylists. “Great. Thanks Justin, you wanna get going?”
“You guys go,“ Justin replies, waving a hand in their general direction as he delves into his closet. “I’ll meet you down there in a sec.”
“Uh, okay, cool.”
Andrew gets up and holds a hand out towards Jesse, which he gladly takes, and together, they leave the room. “You think he’s desperately calling all of the girls in his cell phone on a last minute bid to find a date?” Andrew asks.
Jesse laughs, leaning into Andrew‘s shoulder as they walk. “Yeah, probably.”
***
Andrew and Jesse meet the others in The Square, joining the entire student body in a line that leads into the school gym. Since there are only around two hundred students in attendance at this school, this event hasn‘t been dubbed ‘Senior Prom‘ or ‘Junior Prom‘ or anything like that. This is just Prom, every student is allowed to go, even the Freshmen. The small number of students also means that this entire thing can be housed in Oak Hill‘s sizable gymnasium, unlike most schools that fork out a small fortune every year to rent out some function room in a fancy hotel that‘ll probably get trashed by its students anyway.
“See, I knew Justin could do your hair better than I ever could!” Emma rushes over and embraces Jesse in a hug as though she hasn’t seen him in years. She’s wearing her hair curly today, its redness goes surprisingly well with her emerald green dress. Joe’s eyes seem to follow her wherever she goes, in complete awe.
“Andrew, oh wow! Look at you! You look great!” She hugs Andrew as well.
“So do you.”
It’s only now that Jesse notices the girl stood beside Armie, her arm hooked through his, smiling radiantly. She’s beautiful. Taller than Emma, Joe, even Jesse himself -probably the same height as Andrew- which is pretty damn short when compared to Armie. Gorgeous, waist-length brunette hair, wearing a striking red dress. This is the sort of girl -if he had’ve ended up straight- that Jesse would never imagine himself sharing the same oxygen with, let alone the same friends. She’s the sort of girl he’d admire from afar -like really far- but never, ever talk to for fear of blushing beet red and fainting probably. Jesse assumes that this is Elizabeth, the girl from Armie’s English class. They look like a Prince and Princess. Something out of a fairy tale.
Josh, blond hair masterfully slicked back, wearing a simple black and white tux -with added bowtie- stands alone, looking pretty pleased with himself.
“No date?” Emma asks.
He shakes his head, smiling. “Nope.”
“Aww, I’m sorry.”
Jesse feels his eyes widen involuntarily as he looks up at Andrew, who seems to be equally confused. How in the hell does a guy like Josh Pence end up without a date to Prom? This is a guy that has his thumbs perpetually glued to his cell phone keypad, texting girls pretty much non-stop.
“No no, don’t feel bad for me,” Josh says. “I’ve purposefully not brought a date along.”
Andrew looks at him, an eyebrow raised. “Why?”
“I need to keep my options open. There are plenty of girls in there who might, and probably will, want a piece of me. If I had’ve brought a girl along, then I would’ve limited myself to that one girl.” He takes hold of his lapels and straightens them out, tilting his head from side to side as if preparing for a boxing match. “So many hot girls, so little time.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “You’re such a romantic.”
Joe stretches up onto his tip-toes to look over everyone’s heads. “Hey, is that Justin?”
Armie turns around. “Looks like it.”
“Oh good God,“ Emma says bluntly. “What is he wearing?”
“Are those… are those feathers on his shoulders?”
Armie squints. “I think so.”
And now the entire group has turned to watch Justin approach. Jesse stretches up as best as he can to have a look too. As soon as he catches a glimpse of Justin, he bursts out laughing. “I remember that jacket! He wanted me to get it when he took me shopping that time.”
Andrew‘s giggling too, shaking his head. “Thank goodness you didn’t agree to it.”
“He looks like Brandon fucking Flowers!” Joe cries exasperatedly.
“That’s exactly what I said!”
Joe’s face is scrunched up into a look a vague disgust and shock. “No offence to the guy, but that jacket should be worn by Brandon Flowers, and Brandon Flowers only.”
“Oh come on, it doesn’t look that bad.”
“Hold up!” Josh says, holding a hand out to silence the others. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that Mila Kunis he’s with?”
“As in Head Cheerleader, Mila Kunis?” Emma says, voice thick with disbelief.
“Well, this is Justin we’re talking about,” Andrew offers. “He can get almost any girl he wants.”
Josh turns to his best friend, jumping up and down slightly. He‘s practically giddy. “Dude, I think it's her.”
“Fuck,” is the only response Armie has to offer.
Jesse can’t help but think, Uh, hello! Elizabeth is stood right next to you! That’s not to say that Mila isn’t pretty too, she really is. Jesse’s seen her around school sometimes, petite, great skin, a pretty smile, the kind of eyes that make you appreciate how beautiful eyes can be (kind of like Andrew’s, actually.) But still, Elizabeth is right there.
“My already very large amount of respect for him has just quadrupled,” Josh says in awe, his bottom jaw practically on the ground.
“Mila Kunis!” Despite the fact that he‘s not facing her way, it seems that Armie can sense that he‘s receiving a very stern look from his date. So he turns and makes his eyes wide as if he‘s looking at the most beautiful girl in the world, which he probably is. “I mean, I mean… Elizabeth Chambers!”
Elizabeth smiles a little, and looks away from him. “Better.”
Joe leans over, and speaks quietly into Jesse‘s ear. “I like this girl.”
***
“Well, this is suitably cheesy and high-school-movie-ish.”
As they enter the gym, Andrew casts a judgemental gaze about the room, at the black, white, and silver streamers; at all the transparent, glitter filled balloons on the floor; at the spindly white tables with equally spindly matching chairs ringing the edge of the dance floor; at the mirror ball on the ceiling; at the strobe lights; at the menagerie of students in rented tuxedos and severely over-priced Prom dresses.
“Come on, it’s Prom, it’s a rite of passage.” Jesse swings his and Andrew’s intertwined hands back and forth between them. “It’s not that bad.”
“You know, that’s exactly what Edward Cullen said at the end of Twilight.”
“You’ve seen Twilight?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. Instead, he lets go of Jesse’s hand, throws an arm around his shoulders, and looks down at him, smirking. “Would you have even come along to this if you were still single?”
“Probably not,” Jesse grins. He registers a flash going off in his peripheral vision. Emma’s brought her camera along, and clearly she feels the need to capture candid photographs of anyone and everyone in the general vicinity, including Andrew and Jesse.
Jesse hears her yell “Cute!” in response to the picture she’s just taken. He makes a mental note to ask for a copy of it so that he can add it to his ‘Andrew wall‘ back home. The wall that‘s plastered with Andrew‘s On The Road post-its, the map of the UK that Andrew tore from an atlas (with, of course, its accompanying note and the picture of Andrew in a top-hat), and the picture that the pair of them took with the Snow-Jesse, the words ‘Missing you x‘ written on the back. The wall has been further supplemented over the last few months, with all the notes that Andrew has written to Jesse during History class, along with the Valentine's Day card he was given a few months back.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have come either,” Andrew says, looking over at the others. “Man, if only I‘d broken my leg a couple of months later, I could’ve gotten out of this. We could have stayed up in my dorm, cuddling and feeding each other ice cream or something.”
“Whilst that does sound appealing,“ Jesse says, smiling wistfully, “this is the last night that all of us will be spending together. This time tomorrow, we‘ll all be headed home for the Summer.”
Saying it makes his heart sink, no more Andrew until September, a month and a half without him until college. Jesse grabs him, wraps both arms around his waist, and squeezes. Andrew hugs back, resting his cheek on the top of Jesse’s head, and sighs. “You make a very good point.”
They watch as Joe pulls Emma into his side as she holds the camera out in front of them. She places a kiss on his cheek and he grins just as the flash goes off.
“I spy a new MySpace profile pic,” Andrew whispers.
“Right! Joseph!“ Emma stows her camera away in her little glittery clutch purse and grabs Joe’s arm, dragging him out onto the dance floor. “Dance with me!”
Armie tries his best to look casual, glancing up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact with Elizabeth. She rolls her eyes and takes hold of one of his massive hands in both of hers. “Oh, don’t think you’re getting out of dancing with me tonight.” She drags him onto the floor too, and he goes along with it a little more reluctantly than Joe did.
Mila and Justin soon follow. In fact, Justin’s the one leading Mila to the floor. She turns and giggles at a group of girls who appear to be her friends. Said friends are trying their best not to look jealous.
“Right, I’m gonna go find me some hotties.” Josh scans the room, eyes hopeful, before looking back to Andrew and Jesse, winking. “Be right back.”
“Can you dance?” Jesse asks of Andrew.
“Yeah, I’m pretty good, won’t lie to you, I taught Justin everything he knows.”
Jesse answers that with one word.
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, that last part was a lie,” Andrew grins sheepishly, “but I am a pretty good dancer. What about you?”
“I’m not that great, when I dance, I don’t really move my feet, like this…” Jesse lets go of Andrew, and takes a few steps back, places his feet side by side, and sort of gyrates the upper part of his body, flailing his arms about without moving his legs, as if his feet are stuck in concrete. The whole time he does it, which is for about twenty long seconds, Andrew stares at him, biting his bottom lip, his cheeks puffed out in a desperate attempt to keep himself from laughing.
Once Jesse stops, Andrew blows the air out his mouth and runs a hand over his smiling face. “That’s adorable, in a weird sort of way.”
“Not really,” Jesse steps forward and reaches into his left jacket pocket. “Here, I’ve got something for you. I made it.”
“You made me a mix CD.” Andrew holds the clear plastic jewel case in his hands, containing one plain silver disc. No labels, no paper, nothing that lets him know which songs it holds*. Even though, he‘s looking down, Jesse can see the tops of Andrew‘s cheeks tense up. He‘s smiling. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did.” Jesse shrugs, smiling too. “I mean, you made me two, and I didn’t get you a Christmas present, so it’s only fair that you get at least one back from me, and besides, it shows that you giving me those CD’s got me into some better music. I chose all of the songs myself. There‘s some Green Day on there. Jimmy Eat World. New Found Glory. Paramore. Some other stuff. I like those bands too now.”
Andrew hooks an arm around Jesse‘s neck and pulls him close in the same way that he‘s done so many times before, and kisses the top of his head. “Look at you, my little alternative-rock, pop-punk fan. Let’s take you to Hot Topic and get you a studded belt and some Converse high-tops.”
Jesse looks up at him, frowning. “I’m not taking it that far.”
“Okay,” Andrew scrunches his eyes up and leans down to place a quick kiss on Jesse’s lips. “But yeah, thank you so much for this. I can‘t wait to listen to it, but first it seems we‘ll have to suffer through a few hours of chart-topping R‘n’B.”
“No we don’t, we’re gonna listen to it right now.”
“You want to leave?” Andrew looks hopeful, his eyes light up. “We can grab my vespa and pop down to the shop to grab a tub of Ben & Jerry‘s if you want.”
“No, I don‘t want to leave,” Jesse chuckles and takes the CD out of Andrew’s hand, all the while resisting the urge to say ‘yes‘ to the Ben & Jerry‘s idea. “Right, can you wait here one sec? I just need to go over there and give this to my friend.”
“You have other friends?” Andrews asks, placing a hand on his chest, feigning great shock and disappointment.
Jesse points through the crowd of undulating teenagers, at the stage at the other end of the room -at the small Asian kid stood behind the decks in a tuxedo with a red cummerbund, headphones on his head, eyes closed with concentration, dancing to the music without a care in the world. He’s the DJ for tonight.
“That’s my friend, Aziz,” Jesse explains, speaking loudly so as to be heard over the pounding Rihanna song that‘s currently playing, the one about her wanting to be ‘the only girl in the world’ or something like that. “He’s in my chemistry class, he said he’d put this on for me.”
As Jesse goes to walk away, Andrew grabs hold of his elbow and pulls him back. “You’re going to get the CD you made for me played at Prom?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“That’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.” Andrew smiles, his voice is soft, and Jesse gets that feeling in his stomach -the one that‘s he‘s all too used to, the one that he‘s been experiencing for months and months- the feeling that makes him realise that he‘s in the presence of the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Well, I’m your boyfriend, it’s part of the job description.” Jesse leans forward, kisses his cheek, and dashes off through the crowd.
He passes nearly all of his friends on his journey up to the stage, and finds that he has to duck as he walks by Justin, who’s taken to flipping and spinning Mila around like something out of the dance scene from Grease, despite the fact that the music isn‘t all that appropriate for this style of dance. As she lands on her feet once more, she giggles breathlessly, blows some hair out of her face, and bounds forward to do it all again. Jesse shakes his head fondly as he passes. “Hey Aziz!”
Aziz opens his eyes, stops dancing, and grins upon realising who it is. “Hey man!”
Despite the fact that Jesse is looking right at him, Aziz breaks out into his own brand of body popping, which, to Jesse, looks like a spazzy -I’ve got ants in my underwear- jig.
Jesse leans over the decks, and yells, “You can still put this on, right?”
“Sure thing, Homeboy.”
Aziz takes the CD, and -still dancing- slides it into a CD player nestled between numerous boxes and cases beneath one of the many tables that he’s currently working behind. Rihanna’s warbling is abruptly cut off, an incident which is met with booing and cries of “No!”
As the opening bars of Coldplay’s Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall begin to flow out of the speakers, however, cheers erupt from the crowd and everyone begins to jump up and down in time with the music underneath the pink and purple lights. Aziz doesn’t make a big deal out of it, doesn’t yell down the microphone about this one being for Andrew Garfield, doesn’t mention that Jesse picked it out, but, in his peripheral vision, Jesse sees someone waving. It’s Joe.
“Good choice!” He yells as he dances with Emma, the pair of them grinning like maniacs.
Jesse turns away from him and watches as, from across the room, Andrew smiles at him and mouths, “I love you.”
***“I can’t believe, like, I can’t believe this is it.”
“What?” Andrew asks.
The entire group -well, all but Justin- are sat on the steps outside of the school reception, they can still hear pretty much everything that‘s going on in the gym. It’s almost eleven-thirty, and as the final song of the night fades out, they listen as Aziz wraps things up with “…I hope y’all had fun tonight!”
“This is like, the end of an era. We’re splitting up.” Joe‘s got his head on Emma‘s shoulder, arms wrapped around her waist as he rambles, staring off into the night. He’s been sipping on a bottle of champagne that his girlfriend had grabbed out of her room earlier on, but he certainly isn’t drunk.
“Andrew, you’re off to Columbia Business to do some mind-boggling Economics shit, Jesse’s off to NYU, Justin’s gonna be God-Knows-Where now that he’s been signed by that talent scout,” (Yeah, he did get signed, they loved him) “and I‘m gonna try and get a job in the middle of this fucking recession because college is just not for me. Em, Josh, Armie and…” Joe glances towards the other end of the steps, at Armie and Elizabeth (she‘s wearing his suit jacket over her dress), “…and I guess Elizabeth are gonna still be here, we’re all getting split up.”
Emma looks down at him, speaking softly. “You’d better come visit me as much as you can.”
“Of course I will,” he grins, leaning up to kiss her right on her jaw. “Jesus, Em. I’ve spent three years hopelessly in love with you, do you really think I’d give up on you after only six months of dating? I’m not stupid.”
Andrew scrunches his face up as Josh holds the bottle of champagne out to him, and politely declines a sip. He looks at Joe. “You know, we’re all still gonna be in New York State, so it’s not that bad. That‘s if Justin doesn‘t get sent off to L.A. or something.”
“Why would I be sent off to L.A?” Justin appears from behind a nearby bush, his feathered shoulders flapping in the wind as he swings the gold, plastic crown he’d won earlier on tonight around his wrist.
“Now that you’re a professional dancer, you might be,” Emma says, smiling like a proud parent.
“I wouldn’t call myself a professional.” Justin takes a seat beside Joe and Emma, and grins. “But I am pretty good. Hey, can I have some of that.”
Josh passes the champagne over to him. “Sure. So um, exactly how many pheasants were slain to make that jacket?”
Justin rolls his eyes. “Jesus, they’re fake feathers!”
“So, where’s Mila?” Emma asks.
“Talking to some of her friends, saying goodbyes, crying, the usual,” Justin takes a generous sip of champagne. “Crying partly because this is the last time she’ll see them for a while, and partly because she’s happy about being Prom Queen.”
“Congrats on getting voted Prom King, by the way,” Elizabeth says sweetly.
“Thanks, Elizabeth. To be honest, the thing I’m most surprised about is that I managed to pass all of my classes this year." He lifts the champagne bottle high into the air. “I’m gonna fucking graduate… finally!”
The eight of them burst into cheers and applause as Justin gets to his feet and performs three very over-dramatic bows. Other members of the student body glare with confusion as they pass. Jesse claps along and thinks about how he too has passed every class this year. Even math, because of Andrew, his tutoring, and that spectacularly annotated text book.
Through his happy, kind-hearted laughter, Armie says “it’s crazy how things turn out, huh?”
“I know, right?” Justin smiles and leans over Joe and Emma to hand the bottle back to Josh.
“No offence or anything, Justin, you’re more than deserving, but I still think Jesse and Andrew should have been voted Prom King and Queen,” Emma announces, taking the conversation back a minute or two. “Or I guess, Prom Kings.”
Andrew is sat one step up from Jesse, his legs on either side of his body, arms around his neck. Jesse feels him look up. “Uh, why would you want that to happen?”
Emma waves a hand in the air, smiling. “It would have made a nice statement, you know? Gay pride and all that jazz.”
“Emma, this isn’t an episode of Glee,” Andrew laughs, “and besides, we weren’t even nominated.”
Jesse throws his two cents in. “Plus, there’d be the argument over which one of us would be King.”
“Easy, it’d be you,” Andrew says bluntly. “I’d be Queen, I’d probably look better in an evening dress than you.”
“Not with your shoulders, you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, shut up!” Andrew laughs and grabs either side of Jesse’s face, forcing him to look up at him. He tries his best to look annoyed, but Jesse smiles brightly, and the façade is broken. Andrew huffs and kisses his forehead. “Ugh, you are just the cutest thing, you know that?”
“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit,” Josh says, taking a deep drink of champagne.
“So, how’d your evening go anyway?” Emma asks of Josh.
He stares off into the middle distance, grinning. “Danced with no less that twenty-two girls, made out with four, received fifteen phones numbers. I‘m quite the ladies man.”
Joe says “Wow” and Josh takes another drink.
“Easy with that,“ Emma chastises, “that’s the last bottle of alcohol that I’ll ever have in my possession at this school.”
“Closing up shop, huh?”
“Yeah, I mean, we all know that alcohol can lead to terrible things in certain circumstances, so I think it’s best that we wait until we’re all twenty-one, yeah? I would have stopped straight after Andrew got hurt, but I still had dozens of bottles left and I still needed to pay off the rest of my tuition for this year.”
“I don’t think I’ll be drinking ever again,“ Andrew says. Jesse feels him shudder at the memories.
“Good plan.”
“Yeah,” Armie says vaguely. Then, standing up, he says. “Well, I’m going up. Night guys. Coming, J-Man?”
“Sure,” Josh shrugs and gets to his feet. “You know, all those girls really tired me out tonight.”
Emma purses her lips. “Nice.”
With Elizabeth stood between them, holding Armie’s hand, Josh and Armie leave, headed for their dorm and ultimately their beds. Jesse’s tired out too, but at the same time, he kind of likes being out here, with Andrew, with his friends. He leans back into Andrew’s chest, closes his eyes, and smiles in content. He could fall asleep right here.
“Yeah, we really ought to get you in bed too, Babe,” Emma says. That must have been directed at the mildly-tipsy Joe, as she‘s using a soothing tone that a mother would use in the hope of coaxing her child to sleep.
Joe chuckles to himself. “Only if you come to bed with me.”
Thinking about having to share a room with Joe later tonight, Jesse says, “No offence, Emma, but please don’t.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Jesse listens to her laugh, listens to Joe complain, and strains his ears to listen to them leave, Emma’s footsteps sharp and clacky as a result of her stilettos, Joe’s long and drawn out as he slumps alongside her.
“Night, Sweeties,” Emma says.
In chorus, Andrew, Jesse and Justin reply. “Night.”
Just sitting here in silence like this, late at night, with his boyfriend, thinking about everything that’s happened over the last year, as well as the things that happened tonight -including the group’s collective flailing when By The Way was played- Jesse realises that he’s pretty much done it. Everything he’s ever wanted up until this point in his life, he has it, all of it. He has so many people to love him, and so many people to love back. He couldn‘t ask for anything better.
Justin sucks his lips into his mouth before blowing out a quick stream of air. “Well, uh, I’m gonna go find Mila. See you guys later.”
“Bye, Man,” Andrew says, Jesse can hear the fond smile in his voice.
“Night, Justin,” Jesse adds, watching as Justin leaves, thinking about how he‘s going to miss him so much next year. Joe too, Emma, and of course, Armie and Josh. The spur of the moment choice to leave home, go to this school, meet these people, and Andrew; they‘re all the greatest things to ever happen to him.
And, before Jesse knows it, Andrew’s on his neck, practically in his neck, planting quick little kisses all over it, and the noise that escapes Jesse’s mouth as he shudders sounds like the bastard love-child of a girly squeal and a giggle. “That tickles!”
Andrew laughs too, and leans down over Jesse‘s shoulder so that their heads are placed exactly beside one another. He speaks into Jesse‘s ear, and squeezes his arms around his waist. “I love you so much, you know that right?.”
“Of course I do.”
“Are you also aware of the fact that you’re probably going to end up stuck with me for a very, very long time?”
“Yep.”
He feels Andrew really looking at him now. Jesse turns his head and looks right on back. Andrew's frowning a little with disbelief. “And… and you’re okay with that?”
Jesse answers without even having to think about it. “I‘ve never been more okay with anything in my entire life.”
~
* To see the tracklisting for Jesse's mix CD, 'For Andrew', go HERE.
I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that has read, kept up with, and commented on this fic. I appreciate you all so much and without you I really don't know whether or not I would have completed this fic. Thank you so much for bearing with me when I've taken an age to gets parts up, you're all so amazing.
Part: Epilogue
Word Count: 5,449
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five (i) | Part Five (ii) | Part Six
~
Six months later, July 25th 2011...
“Joe, seriously, I can’t do this by myself.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do about it? I’ve never used gel in my hair. Ever. Emma, can you do his hair for him?”
“I don’t know how to do boy hair,” Emma shrugs helplessly, toying with one of the shoulder straps on her dress. “You’re gonna have to get Justin to do it, Hun.”
Jesse turns away from the mirror on the inside of his closet door and slams it shut in frustration. “But Andrew’s up there, I don’t want him to see me yet.”
“Dude, it’s not like you’re getting married or anything,” Joe laughs as he ties his tie. “It’s just Prom.”
“And hasn’t he seen you in this outfit before?” Emma adds.
“Fine, I’ll get Justin to do it.”
Never in his life did Jesse expect to get bested by a pot of hair gel, he screws the lid back on and pockets it as he leaves his and Joe’s dorm. Another thing he’s never expected? The fact that he‘s going to Prom tonight. Not only is he going, but he has a date. Not just any old date, but Andrew Garfield. Crazy, awesome stuff like this seems to have become almost commonplace in his life nowadays. To think, this time last year he‘d figured that he‘d be spending his Prom night in his room with his cats, watching Crimes & Misdemeanours for the fiftieth time. How things change.
Now, over the last few months, Andrew has been using this operant conditioning method on Justin to keep him from blasting the albums of 90s boy bands. Justin receives a harshly thrown cushion to the head each time that he goes within five feet of their CD player with a Backstreet Boys, Hanson, or 98 Degrees album in hand. It is because of this that Jesse approaches Andrew and Justin’s dorm and hears the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Stadium Arcadium, pouring -at a relatively low level- out from behind the door as apposed to MMMBop or something equally shudder-inducing.
On a regular day, Jesse would just walk straight in, but today, he knocks. “Hey, is it alright if I come in? Are you guys decent?”
It‘s Andrew that answers. “We’re fine, come on in, Beautiful.”
Jesse walks in to find Justin completely tuxedoed up -sans jacket- and Andrew in a suit that is 100% black. Black pants, black shirt, black tie, black jacket, black shoes. Not that Jesse’s complaining, no way. Andrew looks -and Jesse never thought he’d use the word in a sense other than the literal, but- Andrew looks… hot. It seems that Andrew is thinking the same about Jesse, who’s wearing that outfit Justin had bought him all those months ago, with the blue shirt and the slim fit pants and stuff. Andrew’s looking at him in a way that makes Jesse feel exposed in, well, in a good way, if that’s possible.
He grins. “Well, I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. You look gorgeous in that.”
Andrew kisses him.
“I will forever be taking credit for that suit,” Justin says, checking out his newly shaved hair in the mirror, as if a haircut like that could look different from one day to the next.
“Thank you. You guys look great too.” Jesse involuntarily brings his hands up to his face to hide the tail end of his blushing. He looks at Andrew. “Though, don’t stand by a black wall, or black drapes, or you know, in the dark, because we’d only be able to see your head.”
Justin turns around swiftly, pointing at nothing in particular. “Like Floating Head Doctor.”
Since the ‘fire-breathing’ fiasco from the camping trip, relations between Armie, Josh and Justin are at an all time high. Justin’s always over at their dorm these days, and he’s just as into sitcoms as Armie now, hence the shameless Scrubs reference.
Jesse frowns at him, not quite sure what to say. “Uh, yeah exactly.” He turns back to Andrew, wringing his hands nervously. “Hey, um, are we gonna be allowed to go this thing, like… together?”
Andrew sits down, making himself comfortable on his own bed. “What, as a couple?”
“Yeah.”
“Jess, of course we’re allowed to go together, it’s the twenty-first century. As far as I know there are at least four other gay couples here, and there’s a pair of lesbians in the grade below. They don’t care about that stuff here.” Andrew leans forward, grabs one of Jesse’s hands and kisses the back of it with all the sincerity in the world. “We’ll be fine.”
“Oh okay, I was just worried, you know.”
“Well, don‘t be,” Andrew looks up at him, smiling radiantly, and everything‘s okay again. Andrew Garfield is an emotional alchemist, except, instead of turning other metals into gold, he turns Jesse’s neurotic anxiety into contentment and a general feeling of everything’s-going-to-be-alright. It’s a beautiful thing, and Jesse feels a whole lot better for it.
“So why are you here so early any way?” Andrew asks, pulling Jesse a little further forward. “Not that I don’t want you here.”
“I need Justin to do my hair, I can’t get it to go right.”
“Your hair looks fine as it is, I like it this way.” Jesse gives him a stern look, as if to say, Haven’t we been over this before? Which they of course have. Andrew backtracks, chuckles. “But, but I like it when Justin does it too. Sorry.”
“Come over here then, Shortstack,” Justin calls.
Jesse does as he’s told, produces the gel from his pocket, and Justin gets to work in the same fashion as before, biting his lip, brow furrowed in concentration -and nope, to Jesse, that feeling of having someone else’s gel soaked hands in his hair is never going to cease to feel weird.
“So, uh, who’s your date?” Jesse asks, rolling his eyes upwards in a vain attempt to see what Justin’s doing up there.
From behind, Andrew says, “don’t bother asking, he’s not telling anyone.”
“It’s on a need-to-know basis.” Justin smiles like he’s got a secret, like he’s got a master plan tucked up his sleeve.
Jesse frowns again, pouts like a five year old. “But I do need to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m nosy.”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” Justin takes his hands back and rubs them together as he surveys his work. “Okay, I think you’re done.”
Jesse doesn‘t bother checking how it looks, because this is Justin, God amongst amateur hair stylists. “Great. Thanks Justin, you wanna get going?”
“You guys go,“ Justin replies, waving a hand in their general direction as he delves into his closet. “I’ll meet you down there in a sec.”
“Uh, okay, cool.”
Andrew gets up and holds a hand out towards Jesse, which he gladly takes, and together, they leave the room. “You think he’s desperately calling all of the girls in his cell phone on a last minute bid to find a date?” Andrew asks.
Jesse laughs, leaning into Andrew‘s shoulder as they walk. “Yeah, probably.”
***
Andrew and Jesse meet the others in The Square, joining the entire student body in a line that leads into the school gym. Since there are only around two hundred students in attendance at this school, this event hasn‘t been dubbed ‘Senior Prom‘ or ‘Junior Prom‘ or anything like that. This is just Prom, every student is allowed to go, even the Freshmen. The small number of students also means that this entire thing can be housed in Oak Hill‘s sizable gymnasium, unlike most schools that fork out a small fortune every year to rent out some function room in a fancy hotel that‘ll probably get trashed by its students anyway.
“See, I knew Justin could do your hair better than I ever could!” Emma rushes over and embraces Jesse in a hug as though she hasn’t seen him in years. She’s wearing her hair curly today, its redness goes surprisingly well with her emerald green dress. Joe’s eyes seem to follow her wherever she goes, in complete awe.
“Andrew, oh wow! Look at you! You look great!” She hugs Andrew as well.
“So do you.”
It’s only now that Jesse notices the girl stood beside Armie, her arm hooked through his, smiling radiantly. She’s beautiful. Taller than Emma, Joe, even Jesse himself -probably the same height as Andrew- which is pretty damn short when compared to Armie. Gorgeous, waist-length brunette hair, wearing a striking red dress. This is the sort of girl -if he had’ve ended up straight- that Jesse would never imagine himself sharing the same oxygen with, let alone the same friends. She’s the sort of girl he’d admire from afar -like really far- but never, ever talk to for fear of blushing beet red and fainting probably. Jesse assumes that this is Elizabeth, the girl from Armie’s English class. They look like a Prince and Princess. Something out of a fairy tale.
Josh, blond hair masterfully slicked back, wearing a simple black and white tux -with added bowtie- stands alone, looking pretty pleased with himself.
“No date?” Emma asks.
He shakes his head, smiling. “Nope.”
“Aww, I’m sorry.”
Jesse feels his eyes widen involuntarily as he looks up at Andrew, who seems to be equally confused. How in the hell does a guy like Josh Pence end up without a date to Prom? This is a guy that has his thumbs perpetually glued to his cell phone keypad, texting girls pretty much non-stop.
“No no, don’t feel bad for me,” Josh says. “I’ve purposefully not brought a date along.”
Andrew looks at him, an eyebrow raised. “Why?”
“I need to keep my options open. There are plenty of girls in there who might, and probably will, want a piece of me. If I had’ve brought a girl along, then I would’ve limited myself to that one girl.” He takes hold of his lapels and straightens them out, tilting his head from side to side as if preparing for a boxing match. “So many hot girls, so little time.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “You’re such a romantic.”
Joe stretches up onto his tip-toes to look over everyone’s heads. “Hey, is that Justin?”
Armie turns around. “Looks like it.”
“Oh good God,“ Emma says bluntly. “What is he wearing?”
“Are those… are those feathers on his shoulders?”
Armie squints. “I think so.”
And now the entire group has turned to watch Justin approach. Jesse stretches up as best as he can to have a look too. As soon as he catches a glimpse of Justin, he bursts out laughing. “I remember that jacket! He wanted me to get it when he took me shopping that time.”
Andrew‘s giggling too, shaking his head. “Thank goodness you didn’t agree to it.”
“He looks like Brandon fucking Flowers!” Joe cries exasperatedly.
“That’s exactly what I said!”
Joe’s face is scrunched up into a look a vague disgust and shock. “No offence to the guy, but that jacket should be worn by Brandon Flowers, and Brandon Flowers only.”
“Oh come on, it doesn’t look that bad.”
“Hold up!” Josh says, holding a hand out to silence the others. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that Mila Kunis he’s with?”
“As in Head Cheerleader, Mila Kunis?” Emma says, voice thick with disbelief.
“Well, this is Justin we’re talking about,” Andrew offers. “He can get almost any girl he wants.”
Josh turns to his best friend, jumping up and down slightly. He‘s practically giddy. “Dude, I think it's her.”
“Fuck,” is the only response Armie has to offer.
Jesse can’t help but think, Uh, hello! Elizabeth is stood right next to you! That’s not to say that Mila isn’t pretty too, she really is. Jesse’s seen her around school sometimes, petite, great skin, a pretty smile, the kind of eyes that make you appreciate how beautiful eyes can be (kind of like Andrew’s, actually.) But still, Elizabeth is right there.
“My already very large amount of respect for him has just quadrupled,” Josh says in awe, his bottom jaw practically on the ground.
“Mila Kunis!” Despite the fact that he‘s not facing her way, it seems that Armie can sense that he‘s receiving a very stern look from his date. So he turns and makes his eyes wide as if he‘s looking at the most beautiful girl in the world, which he probably is. “I mean, I mean… Elizabeth Chambers!”
Elizabeth smiles a little, and looks away from him. “Better.”
Joe leans over, and speaks quietly into Jesse‘s ear. “I like this girl.”
***
“Well, this is suitably cheesy and high-school-movie-ish.”
As they enter the gym, Andrew casts a judgemental gaze about the room, at the black, white, and silver streamers; at all the transparent, glitter filled balloons on the floor; at the spindly white tables with equally spindly matching chairs ringing the edge of the dance floor; at the mirror ball on the ceiling; at the strobe lights; at the menagerie of students in rented tuxedos and severely over-priced Prom dresses.
“Come on, it’s Prom, it’s a rite of passage.” Jesse swings his and Andrew’s intertwined hands back and forth between them. “It’s not that bad.”
“You know, that’s exactly what Edward Cullen said at the end of Twilight.”
“You’ve seen Twilight?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. Instead, he lets go of Jesse’s hand, throws an arm around his shoulders, and looks down at him, smirking. “Would you have even come along to this if you were still single?”
“Probably not,” Jesse grins. He registers a flash going off in his peripheral vision. Emma’s brought her camera along, and clearly she feels the need to capture candid photographs of anyone and everyone in the general vicinity, including Andrew and Jesse.
Jesse hears her yell “Cute!” in response to the picture she’s just taken. He makes a mental note to ask for a copy of it so that he can add it to his ‘Andrew wall‘ back home. The wall that‘s plastered with Andrew‘s On The Road post-its, the map of the UK that Andrew tore from an atlas (with, of course, its accompanying note and the picture of Andrew in a top-hat), and the picture that the pair of them took with the Snow-Jesse, the words ‘Missing you x‘ written on the back. The wall has been further supplemented over the last few months, with all the notes that Andrew has written to Jesse during History class, along with the Valentine's Day card he was given a few months back.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have come either,” Andrew says, looking over at the others. “Man, if only I‘d broken my leg a couple of months later, I could’ve gotten out of this. We could have stayed up in my dorm, cuddling and feeding each other ice cream or something.”
“Whilst that does sound appealing,“ Jesse says, smiling wistfully, “this is the last night that all of us will be spending together. This time tomorrow, we‘ll all be headed home for the Summer.”
Saying it makes his heart sink, no more Andrew until September, a month and a half without him until college. Jesse grabs him, wraps both arms around his waist, and squeezes. Andrew hugs back, resting his cheek on the top of Jesse’s head, and sighs. “You make a very good point.”
They watch as Joe pulls Emma into his side as she holds the camera out in front of them. She places a kiss on his cheek and he grins just as the flash goes off.
“I spy a new MySpace profile pic,” Andrew whispers.
“Right! Joseph!“ Emma stows her camera away in her little glittery clutch purse and grabs Joe’s arm, dragging him out onto the dance floor. “Dance with me!”
Armie tries his best to look casual, glancing up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact with Elizabeth. She rolls her eyes and takes hold of one of his massive hands in both of hers. “Oh, don’t think you’re getting out of dancing with me tonight.” She drags him onto the floor too, and he goes along with it a little more reluctantly than Joe did.
Mila and Justin soon follow. In fact, Justin’s the one leading Mila to the floor. She turns and giggles at a group of girls who appear to be her friends. Said friends are trying their best not to look jealous.
“Right, I’m gonna go find me some hotties.” Josh scans the room, eyes hopeful, before looking back to Andrew and Jesse, winking. “Be right back.”
“Can you dance?” Jesse asks of Andrew.
“Yeah, I’m pretty good, won’t lie to you, I taught Justin everything he knows.”
Jesse answers that with one word.
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, that last part was a lie,” Andrew grins sheepishly, “but I am a pretty good dancer. What about you?”
“I’m not that great, when I dance, I don’t really move my feet, like this…” Jesse lets go of Andrew, and takes a few steps back, places his feet side by side, and sort of gyrates the upper part of his body, flailing his arms about without moving his legs, as if his feet are stuck in concrete. The whole time he does it, which is for about twenty long seconds, Andrew stares at him, biting his bottom lip, his cheeks puffed out in a desperate attempt to keep himself from laughing.
Once Jesse stops, Andrew blows the air out his mouth and runs a hand over his smiling face. “That’s adorable, in a weird sort of way.”
“Not really,” Jesse steps forward and reaches into his left jacket pocket. “Here, I’ve got something for you. I made it.”
“You made me a mix CD.” Andrew holds the clear plastic jewel case in his hands, containing one plain silver disc. No labels, no paper, nothing that lets him know which songs it holds*. Even though, he‘s looking down, Jesse can see the tops of Andrew‘s cheeks tense up. He‘s smiling. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did.” Jesse shrugs, smiling too. “I mean, you made me two, and I didn’t get you a Christmas present, so it’s only fair that you get at least one back from me, and besides, it shows that you giving me those CD’s got me into some better music. I chose all of the songs myself. There‘s some Green Day on there. Jimmy Eat World. New Found Glory. Paramore. Some other stuff. I like those bands too now.”
Andrew hooks an arm around Jesse‘s neck and pulls him close in the same way that he‘s done so many times before, and kisses the top of his head. “Look at you, my little alternative-rock, pop-punk fan. Let’s take you to Hot Topic and get you a studded belt and some Converse high-tops.”
Jesse looks up at him, frowning. “I’m not taking it that far.”
“Okay,” Andrew scrunches his eyes up and leans down to place a quick kiss on Jesse’s lips. “But yeah, thank you so much for this. I can‘t wait to listen to it, but first it seems we‘ll have to suffer through a few hours of chart-topping R‘n’B.”
“No we don’t, we’re gonna listen to it right now.”
“You want to leave?” Andrew looks hopeful, his eyes light up. “We can grab my vespa and pop down to the shop to grab a tub of Ben & Jerry‘s if you want.”
“No, I don‘t want to leave,” Jesse chuckles and takes the CD out of Andrew’s hand, all the while resisting the urge to say ‘yes‘ to the Ben & Jerry‘s idea. “Right, can you wait here one sec? I just need to go over there and give this to my friend.”
“You have other friends?” Andrews asks, placing a hand on his chest, feigning great shock and disappointment.
Jesse points through the crowd of undulating teenagers, at the stage at the other end of the room -at the small Asian kid stood behind the decks in a tuxedo with a red cummerbund, headphones on his head, eyes closed with concentration, dancing to the music without a care in the world. He’s the DJ for tonight.
“That’s my friend, Aziz,” Jesse explains, speaking loudly so as to be heard over the pounding Rihanna song that‘s currently playing, the one about her wanting to be ‘the only girl in the world’ or something like that. “He’s in my chemistry class, he said he’d put this on for me.”
As Jesse goes to walk away, Andrew grabs hold of his elbow and pulls him back. “You’re going to get the CD you made for me played at Prom?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“That’s one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.” Andrew smiles, his voice is soft, and Jesse gets that feeling in his stomach -the one that‘s he‘s all too used to, the one that he‘s been experiencing for months and months- the feeling that makes him realise that he‘s in the presence of the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Well, I’m your boyfriend, it’s part of the job description.” Jesse leans forward, kisses his cheek, and dashes off through the crowd.
He passes nearly all of his friends on his journey up to the stage, and finds that he has to duck as he walks by Justin, who’s taken to flipping and spinning Mila around like something out of the dance scene from Grease, despite the fact that the music isn‘t all that appropriate for this style of dance. As she lands on her feet once more, she giggles breathlessly, blows some hair out of her face, and bounds forward to do it all again. Jesse shakes his head fondly as he passes. “Hey Aziz!”
Aziz opens his eyes, stops dancing, and grins upon realising who it is. “Hey man!”
Despite the fact that Jesse is looking right at him, Aziz breaks out into his own brand of body popping, which, to Jesse, looks like a spazzy -I’ve got ants in my underwear- jig.
Jesse leans over the decks, and yells, “You can still put this on, right?”
“Sure thing, Homeboy.”
Aziz takes the CD, and -still dancing- slides it into a CD player nestled between numerous boxes and cases beneath one of the many tables that he’s currently working behind. Rihanna’s warbling is abruptly cut off, an incident which is met with booing and cries of “No!”
As the opening bars of Coldplay’s Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall begin to flow out of the speakers, however, cheers erupt from the crowd and everyone begins to jump up and down in time with the music underneath the pink and purple lights. Aziz doesn’t make a big deal out of it, doesn’t yell down the microphone about this one being for Andrew Garfield, doesn’t mention that Jesse picked it out, but, in his peripheral vision, Jesse sees someone waving. It’s Joe.
“Good choice!” He yells as he dances with Emma, the pair of them grinning like maniacs.
Jesse turns away from him and watches as, from across the room, Andrew smiles at him and mouths, “I love you.”
***“I can’t believe, like, I can’t believe this is it.”
“What?” Andrew asks.
The entire group -well, all but Justin- are sat on the steps outside of the school reception, they can still hear pretty much everything that‘s going on in the gym. It’s almost eleven-thirty, and as the final song of the night fades out, they listen as Aziz wraps things up with “…I hope y’all had fun tonight!”
“This is like, the end of an era. We’re splitting up.” Joe‘s got his head on Emma‘s shoulder, arms wrapped around her waist as he rambles, staring off into the night. He’s been sipping on a bottle of champagne that his girlfriend had grabbed out of her room earlier on, but he certainly isn’t drunk.
“Andrew, you’re off to Columbia Business to do some mind-boggling Economics shit, Jesse’s off to NYU, Justin’s gonna be God-Knows-Where now that he’s been signed by that talent scout,” (Yeah, he did get signed, they loved him) “and I‘m gonna try and get a job in the middle of this fucking recession because college is just not for me. Em, Josh, Armie and…” Joe glances towards the other end of the steps, at Armie and Elizabeth (she‘s wearing his suit jacket over her dress), “…and I guess Elizabeth are gonna still be here, we’re all getting split up.”
Emma looks down at him, speaking softly. “You’d better come visit me as much as you can.”
“Of course I will,” he grins, leaning up to kiss her right on her jaw. “Jesus, Em. I’ve spent three years hopelessly in love with you, do you really think I’d give up on you after only six months of dating? I’m not stupid.”
Andrew scrunches his face up as Josh holds the bottle of champagne out to him, and politely declines a sip. He looks at Joe. “You know, we’re all still gonna be in New York State, so it’s not that bad. That‘s if Justin doesn‘t get sent off to L.A. or something.”
“Why would I be sent off to L.A?” Justin appears from behind a nearby bush, his feathered shoulders flapping in the wind as he swings the gold, plastic crown he’d won earlier on tonight around his wrist.
“Now that you’re a professional dancer, you might be,” Emma says, smiling like a proud parent.
“I wouldn’t call myself a professional.” Justin takes a seat beside Joe and Emma, and grins. “But I am pretty good. Hey, can I have some of that.”
Josh passes the champagne over to him. “Sure. So um, exactly how many pheasants were slain to make that jacket?”
Justin rolls his eyes. “Jesus, they’re fake feathers!”
“So, where’s Mila?” Emma asks.
“Talking to some of her friends, saying goodbyes, crying, the usual,” Justin takes a generous sip of champagne. “Crying partly because this is the last time she’ll see them for a while, and partly because she’s happy about being Prom Queen.”
“Congrats on getting voted Prom King, by the way,” Elizabeth says sweetly.
“Thanks, Elizabeth. To be honest, the thing I’m most surprised about is that I managed to pass all of my classes this year." He lifts the champagne bottle high into the air. “I’m gonna fucking graduate… finally!”
The eight of them burst into cheers and applause as Justin gets to his feet and performs three very over-dramatic bows. Other members of the student body glare with confusion as they pass. Jesse claps along and thinks about how he too has passed every class this year. Even math, because of Andrew, his tutoring, and that spectacularly annotated text book.
Through his happy, kind-hearted laughter, Armie says “it’s crazy how things turn out, huh?”
“I know, right?” Justin smiles and leans over Joe and Emma to hand the bottle back to Josh.
“No offence or anything, Justin, you’re more than deserving, but I still think Jesse and Andrew should have been voted Prom King and Queen,” Emma announces, taking the conversation back a minute or two. “Or I guess, Prom Kings.”
Andrew is sat one step up from Jesse, his legs on either side of his body, arms around his neck. Jesse feels him look up. “Uh, why would you want that to happen?”
Emma waves a hand in the air, smiling. “It would have made a nice statement, you know? Gay pride and all that jazz.”
“Emma, this isn’t an episode of Glee,” Andrew laughs, “and besides, we weren’t even nominated.”
Jesse throws his two cents in. “Plus, there’d be the argument over which one of us would be King.”
“Easy, it’d be you,” Andrew says bluntly. “I’d be Queen, I’d probably look better in an evening dress than you.”
“Not with your shoulders, you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, shut up!” Andrew laughs and grabs either side of Jesse’s face, forcing him to look up at him. He tries his best to look annoyed, but Jesse smiles brightly, and the façade is broken. Andrew huffs and kisses his forehead. “Ugh, you are just the cutest thing, you know that?”
“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit,” Josh says, taking a deep drink of champagne.
“So, how’d your evening go anyway?” Emma asks of Josh.
He stares off into the middle distance, grinning. “Danced with no less that twenty-two girls, made out with four, received fifteen phones numbers. I‘m quite the ladies man.”
Joe says “Wow” and Josh takes another drink.
“Easy with that,“ Emma chastises, “that’s the last bottle of alcohol that I’ll ever have in my possession at this school.”
“Closing up shop, huh?”
“Yeah, I mean, we all know that alcohol can lead to terrible things in certain circumstances, so I think it’s best that we wait until we’re all twenty-one, yeah? I would have stopped straight after Andrew got hurt, but I still had dozens of bottles left and I still needed to pay off the rest of my tuition for this year.”
“I don’t think I’ll be drinking ever again,“ Andrew says. Jesse feels him shudder at the memories.
“Good plan.”
“Yeah,” Armie says vaguely. Then, standing up, he says. “Well, I’m going up. Night guys. Coming, J-Man?”
“Sure,” Josh shrugs and gets to his feet. “You know, all those girls really tired me out tonight.”
Emma purses her lips. “Nice.”
With Elizabeth stood between them, holding Armie’s hand, Josh and Armie leave, headed for their dorm and ultimately their beds. Jesse’s tired out too, but at the same time, he kind of likes being out here, with Andrew, with his friends. He leans back into Andrew’s chest, closes his eyes, and smiles in content. He could fall asleep right here.
“Yeah, we really ought to get you in bed too, Babe,” Emma says. That must have been directed at the mildly-tipsy Joe, as she‘s using a soothing tone that a mother would use in the hope of coaxing her child to sleep.
Joe chuckles to himself. “Only if you come to bed with me.”
Thinking about having to share a room with Joe later tonight, Jesse says, “No offence, Emma, but please don’t.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Jesse listens to her laugh, listens to Joe complain, and strains his ears to listen to them leave, Emma’s footsteps sharp and clacky as a result of her stilettos, Joe’s long and drawn out as he slumps alongside her.
“Night, Sweeties,” Emma says.
In chorus, Andrew, Jesse and Justin reply. “Night.”
Just sitting here in silence like this, late at night, with his boyfriend, thinking about everything that’s happened over the last year, as well as the things that happened tonight -including the group’s collective flailing when By The Way was played- Jesse realises that he’s pretty much done it. Everything he’s ever wanted up until this point in his life, he has it, all of it. He has so many people to love him, and so many people to love back. He couldn‘t ask for anything better.
Justin sucks his lips into his mouth before blowing out a quick stream of air. “Well, uh, I’m gonna go find Mila. See you guys later.”
“Bye, Man,” Andrew says, Jesse can hear the fond smile in his voice.
“Night, Justin,” Jesse adds, watching as Justin leaves, thinking about how he‘s going to miss him so much next year. Joe too, Emma, and of course, Armie and Josh. The spur of the moment choice to leave home, go to this school, meet these people, and Andrew; they‘re all the greatest things to ever happen to him.
And, before Jesse knows it, Andrew’s on his neck, practically in his neck, planting quick little kisses all over it, and the noise that escapes Jesse’s mouth as he shudders sounds like the bastard love-child of a girly squeal and a giggle. “That tickles!”
Andrew laughs too, and leans down over Jesse‘s shoulder so that their heads are placed exactly beside one another. He speaks into Jesse‘s ear, and squeezes his arms around his waist. “I love you so much, you know that right?.”
“Of course I do.”
“Are you also aware of the fact that you’re probably going to end up stuck with me for a very, very long time?”
“Yep.”
He feels Andrew really looking at him now. Jesse turns his head and looks right on back. Andrew's frowning a little with disbelief. “And… and you’re okay with that?”
Jesse answers without even having to think about it. “I‘ve never been more okay with anything in my entire life.”
~
* To see the tracklisting for Jesse's mix CD, 'For Andrew', go HERE.
I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that has read, kept up with, and commented on this fic. I appreciate you all so much and without you I really don't know whether or not I would have completed this fic. Thank you so much for bearing with me when I've taken an age to gets parts up, you're all so amazing.