The role of the hero in antiquity 3/7
His defences the next morning strangely reminded him of road kill, not only down but utterly flattened. That image also almost caused him to heave. He didn’t. He got up and put coffee on and drank it scalding even though his stomach protested pretty violently after the previous night’s abuse.
Brendon’s shoes and jacket were still in the hallway and some part of his brain processed that Brendon hadn’t run. That there was possibly a chance Jon would get to apologize and have a real conversation consisting of more coherent sentences and perhaps not quite as many swear-words.
Jon was maybe remarkably stupid to hope there would be anything of that sort. Brendon acted like nothing whatsoever had happened. He smiled at Jon, the whatever-you’d-call-it on his face a shade darker and a lot uglier in broad daylight and started talking about a movie, making it sound like he actually cared.
Jon listened for about ten minutes. Then he set his cup down.
“What the actual fuck, Brendon?”
Brendon set his cup down as well, straightened his back. Turned. Looked. At Jon.
“Say the word and I’m gone, Jon. No hard feelings. But we’re not talking about this.”
Even through the haze of hangover and pounding headache, it translated to “I’m fucking terrified.” Loud and clear.
“Brendon?”
“No. We are not talking about this.”
Brendon retreated to his room while Jon still fought for something to say, anything at all, some bullshit reassurance to make that look in Brendon’s eyes go away. Eventually, Jon settled for puking into the kitchen bin.
Spencer didn’t take well to whatever turn of events had resulted in the current state of Brendon’s face.
“Tell me you didn’t,” he demanded flatly after Brendon had disappeared in his bedroom and Jon just looked at him. Spencer’s bitch-routine was an endless source of amusement for Jon. Being on the receiving end wasn’t even half as much fun.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Spencer? You’ve known me for, what, three years?”
“Two and a half. Also, not an answer to my question.”
Jon shook his head. He would have argued the point, but two and a half years were enough time that he couldn’t even blame Spencer. He couldn’t even be outraged at the accusation. Jon despised violence, but between now and two and a half years ago, there had been some. He couldn’t deny that. He couldn’t just blame it on the fact that Tom turned into a raving shit when drunk.
Spencer had been there. Spencer had seen it. The fact of the matter was, Jon had punched Tom out a few times when things got heated. He’d given as good as he’d gotten. Even that wasn’t true. He’d gotten a lot worse then he would’ve ever had the strength to give. Water under the bridge.
Spencer was still glaring at him.
“I know you don’t wanna hear it, man. But maybe it’s about time you get your shit together.”
“I fucking told you, I didn’t do anything.”
“Not what I meant.”
Jon groaned.
“Go save some other corner of the world, Smith? Lay down a drum track for the next presidential campaign? Suck your boyfriend off so he can write an epic emo poem about it? Get Brendon some ice for that shiner, which, for the record, I did not put on his stupid face? Just… fuck off. I didn’t ask for an intervention.”
Spencer grinned. “Wow, Walker. You really are an asshole.” He almost sounded impressed.
“I learned from the master,” Jon snapped and Spencer rolled his eyes before hoisting himself up on the kitchen counter and dangling his legs like there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be right now.
“If you’re done with the pissed off, would you please explain to me what the fuck your actual problem is?”
Provoking Spencer was just useless. It was a bit like trying to provoke a goldfish in a bathtub. Not gratifying. Besides, Jon was well aware he was being an ass.
“Just. Look, all I know is, I got drunk. Brendon came in. Picked me up. I asked stupid questions.”
Spencer stretched his arms and then stared out of the window, his expression bored.
“Hey, you asked, remember?”
Spencer looked at him.
“Your problem, Jon. If I want to hear about Brendon, I can talk to the guy.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. I just got drunk, man. That’s all.”
“Right. Shit-faced. On your own, in the dark. Staring at Tom’s portfolio.”
Jon studied the table for a moment. Someone should maybe probably clean that at some point, he thought. The stains were beginning to form layers.
“Jon, Tom…”
“Don’t.” He knew that voice, that eerie calm social worker approach. He didn’t wanna hear it. Jon was not a goddamn fucking battered wife, for fuck’s sake.
“Jon, look, I know…”
“You don’t know shit, Spence. You don’t know a fucking thing about Tom.”
“Jon, just cause the guy was your boyfriend doesn’t mean he wasn’t a fucking asshole alcoholic.” Spencer, if possible, sounded even calmer now. He sounded like he was explaining to a frightened child that no, there really wasn’t a ghost in the closet.
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Jon replied lamely, like that was the real point of all this.
Spencer rolled his eyes.
“Whatever, Walker. It’s not even my business.” Wow, there was something out there in the world that Spencer didn’t consider his business? Jon was stunned.
“However…” Yeah, wait for it, Jon thought. He knew Spencer just for once butting the fuck out would have been too much to ask.
“… you miss the guy. Maybe you shouldn’t, cause he treated you like shit, but whatever. You miss him, you’re hurt and you can stop with the part where you’re trying to be a man about it cause it’s getting old.”
So Spencer was altogether too good at giving it to you straight when he needed to. Jon suspected it was probably a skill perfected by navigating twenty years of Ryan’s bullshit.
“Just. Spence, he looked fucking terrified. I asked and he looked terrified and. Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Spencer said softly, like he had fucking expected this. Like Spencer understood how Jon had recognized that look, what it had reminded him of.
“Fucking bullshit,” he snarled and tried getting past Spencer, out of the kitchen, just the fuck away. Fat chance. Spencer stopped him, palm flat against his chest, like a goddamn traffic cop.
“What, we aren’t done? Gonna get a stuffed animal so I can show you where the bad man touched me?”
Spencer huffed out a dry laugh and wrapped him in a hug, not letting go until Jon felt his own breath slowing down, until he maybe started hugging back a little. Spencer sighed contently when Jon relaxed against him.
“You’re so fucking gay, dude.”
“You love it.”
“Your mom…”
“Don’t even.”
And Jon really wasn’t gonna. No one had any chance at all against Spencer in a battle like that. Jon suspected Spencer was secretly black and had grown up in Harlem. Spencer was also secretly Sigmund Freud.
“Dude, are you cut?”
Spencer blinked.
“No. Just. No, Walker.” Which probably hadn’t really been an answer to the question. Then again, it hadn’t been much of a question.
***
This would usually have been the part where Jon moved on. Put the mental snap shots on the absolutely-no-value-artistic-or-otherwise-pile somewhere nicely subconscious and forgotten all about it. Except. Brendon.
Jon waited two days, two days of Brendon largely hiding in his room or behind easy smiles. Two days of Ryan not quite managing to not stare at Jon sitting on the floor.
“I’m talking to him”, he eventually grumbled and made his way upstairs, pretty sure Ryan would take that as his cue to start another chapter of his great tragedy. Jon was nothing if not an enabler. He briefly wondered if he would have preferred the term muse and then considered killing his fucking fairy flatmates with a chainsaw before violating their bloody remains just to reaffirm the fact that he was bona fide straight American MALE. Somehow, he lacked both the conviction and energy to follow through.
He knocked on Brendon’s door softly.
“Come on in.” Brendon shut his laptop before looking up at him.
“’sup?” He was smiling.
“I… Can I talk with you?”
The smile didn’t falter, didn’t change. Didn’t reveal a single fucking thing.
“Sure.”
Jon sat down on the bed and thought how this wasn’t his part. This was… for people with a dominant gene for arranging flowers. Spencers. Human life forms that weren’t Jon Walker, cause Jon Walker was no fucking good at this.
“About the other night.”
Brendon shook his head and waved dismissively, smile cemented in place.
“No big deal. Just… forget about it.”
No. Fucking. Good. At. This.
“Will you hear me out? Just… you don’t have to, you know, talk or anything. But… listen?”
Brendon nodded but he was no longer smiling.
“I’m crap at this, Brendon. I’m useless with. You know, the care bear routine. But, that thing on your face? I don’t think you deserved that. And I’m not… just. Sometimes, shit like this isn’t a big deal until it suddenly is.”
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of expression in Brendon’s face. He looked like he was made of wax.
“I know it gets out of hand and the next day it doesn’t matter and there’s always an excuse cause we’re just guys and shit happens and. Brendon, you looked fucking terrified. I… didn’t like that much.”
And wow, did Jon ever suck at this part.
Brendon surveyed the carpet for a minute and there was something else in his eyes. Not the haunted, not the terrified, not the easy-going and pleasant. Something that forced Jon to say: “Please don’t bullshit me. Don’t lie to me right now.”
Cause he couldn’t take that. Brendon laughed, a shaky, quiet laugh that didn’t sound like him at all.
“Yeah, shit. That much for I tripped and fell down the stairs”, he spat out and Jon couldn’t help but bark out a similarly shitty laugh of his own.
“Had a fight with someone in a bar?” he supplied.
“Walked into a door”, Brendon finished without missing a beat. Jon smiled. Brendon didn’t.
“Jon, if. If I asked you not to ask?”
Jon shook his head. “Dude, I like you. I… I liked you. You moved in and I thought. I kinda.”
Jon listened to the way the words tumbled off his own lips and then bit them. Hard.
“Fuck, not like that. Not like. I just liked you.”
Brendon grinned. “You really do suck at this.”
Jon shrugged. Yesterday’s news.
“Whichever way”, Brendon mumbled. “You probably wouldn’t. After.”
He gave Jon a moment to process, but didn’t give him a chance to interject.
“But. I like you, Jon. I… I really liked it here.”
Past tense.
“What the…?”
“I’m a hooker,” Brendon replied tersely. “I wasn’t. I don’t teach music. I don’t. There wasn’t a band that never went anywhere. I’m. I lied.”
There where a lot of things that would have constituted a more adequate response to that revelation then the one Jon settled for. But Jon? Sucked at this.
“You still like Disney, right?”
“The fuck, Walker?”
Jon shrugged. “Jesus Christ, Brendon. You’re a hooker. What the fuck do you expect, a speech? A lecture how that’s really not a way to build your bright future and you could get into trouble? I’m pretty sure you already know that.”
That thing in Brendon’s face seemed like an adequate hint.
“Yeah, no shit,” Brendon mumbled. “Fuck, Jon. I mean. Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
There was a pun in there somewhere and a good one at that, but Jon wasn’t in the mood.
“So, about the part where you’re terrified,” Jon prompted.
Brendon shook his head. “You really don’t wanna hear it.”
“No, actually, I really, really do Brendon.” He’d only spent the better part of the last two weeks with a memory of that expression on Brendon’s face that kept him from falling asleep.
Brendon rolled his eyes. Jon couldn’t quite put a finger on what exactly had changed in Brendon’s demeanour, but yeah. Different.
“It’s pretty lifetime, man,” Brendon warned. Poor fucking excuse.
“Yeah, thanks, I live with Ryan.”
Brendon grinned, but the expression vanished into something equal amounts wistful and bitter.
“Right. The short version goes like this: I owe someone twenty k. It’s not exactly a bank loan, but at least they gave me the choice of… you know. Setting up shop on my own. So, you know, not a pimp or anything, just someone who wants their money back.”
Yeah, fuck.
“How do you owe some guy 20 grand?”
Brendon bit his lip.
“I was in love. Shit happened.”
Jon thought that over for a moment.
“You’d make an incredibly crap story teller”, he commented eventually.
Brendon shrugged.
“It’s not particularly good material.”
Jon snorted. “Tell Ryan that.”
Brendon was quiet for a while, occasionally casting him a side-long glance.
“You actually really don’t suck at this as much as you think.”
“Yeah, I’m totally a people-person. Is that a word featured on hooker resumes a lot, by the way?”
“Dude, hooker jokes? Seriously, that low?”
Jon didn’t reply, couldn’t bring himself to say what he really wanted to say. Which amounted to a lot of bullshit about Brendon being so much better then that and how could he even and fuck, man, what if and oh my god, your life sucks. Cause honestly, like that would have changed a fucking thing.
Eventually, Jon settled for a feeble repetition of “Spencer works as a click-track. I do wedding photography.”
Brendon kissed him.
Not like kissed him, but yeah. Kissed him. On the cheek, catching maybe a tiny corner of his mouth, just a brief brush of lips that totally wasn’t sexual. Not meant to be. Jon got that. Friendly I love you so hard right now for not judging me kissing. Pete-style kissing. NOT sexual.
“Fuck you, not lowering your rent,” Jon grumbled and Brendon laughed that way again, that other way that was maybe a bit shy and incredulous like Brendon couldn’t even believe his laughter could still sound real.
“Yeah, true. You probably couldn’t afford me anyway, I’m wasting valuable time here.”
And yeah, Jon liked Brendon.