Who Could Ask For Any More - Part Three - November
Title: Who Could Ask For Any More?
Part: Three
Word Count: 9,595
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two
~
It's the first week of November -Wednesday- and Jesse is sat in the middle row of his fourth period math class, gripping his pen so tightly it may break and willing his brain to recall at least some of the lecture Andrew had given him about differential equations. He has scribbled down a jumble of numbers and letters, ensured that they are in the correct order, and he's even colour coded a few of them, but it's just not helping.
In the top right-hand corner of the page, he writes: 'This makes no sense at all, see Andrew... again'. Which is all too fine with Jesse, he'll happily see Andrew all day, every day, even if they had conversations solely about math, Jesse would still do it.
His mind begins to wander.
Andrew is rarely away from Jesse these days. He meets Jesse outside of his and Joe's dorm every morning to walk him to his first period class, and at the end of the day to walk him back. Sometimes, if their classes are close enough, Andrew will meet Jesse between periods. They always sit next to one another during meal times, and their tutoring sessions have doubled. Jesse thinks that maybe this is Andrew's way of keeping an eye on him, making sure that his personality doesn't really change as a result of this crazy makeover that the guys are performing on him. Jesse doesn't mind. He likes the attention, and he's been getting so much of it recently.
All this extra time spent together, the close proximity -the fact that they might as well be sewn at the hip during History class because Andrew insists on shuffling his chair over until the length of his thigh is pressed into Jesse's- it's making Jesse appreciate all of the tiny little things that other people wouldn't notice about Andrew.
Like this morning, for example, it's been raining all day, that kind of heavy, unforgiving rain that batters the windows, soaks you to the very skin, and makes you feel gooey and miserable all day because your shoes end up filled with water.
Jesse had noticed -after Andrew had gripped his hand and ushered him quickly across The Square- the way in which the rain drops had caught in Andrew's hair -like the morning dew on blades of grass- and that they turned into small, shiny, spherical rainbows when the light hit them. Jesse also knows that there are six freckles on the back of Andrew's neck, and Jesse can just tell when Andrew has been in a room, because it'll smell just like him. The musky smell of a flannel shirt -three days worn- and his designer brand cologne that was probably endorsed by some celebrity.
Jesse smiles as he begins to fill the bottom left-hand corner of the page with dozens of tiny A's. Loopy, cursive, stupidly flamboyant A's, the kind of A's that Andrew uses when he signs his own name -Andrew doesn't actually use capitals, but slightly larger, lower-case A's. Jesse feels as though he's stepped out some kind of corny teen movie as he does this. He's totally smitten. Maybe, he thinks, this is what Britney had been doing seconds before the opening of the video for Baby One More Time. Though at the same time, he kind of hopes not, because now he's picturing himself with pigtails and fluffy pink hair ties. Jesse drops his pen at the thought. His hand aches from writing, he flexes his fingers.
He glances down at his hands and chuckles a little under his breath at how flat and defined the pads of his thumbs have become. Phase one of Jesse's personality overhaul has already begun -Yes, Jesse refers to them as phases, but never aloud- the simplest of the phases. Joe's phase. Video games.
Jesse's thumbs have ended up this way because whenever he isn't eating, sleeping, with Andrew, studying, or actually in school, Joe has Jesse playing the PlayStation, the Xbox, sometimes the Wii. Jesse really likes Mario Kart. On a few occasions, Joe has even requested that Jesse take his spare Nintendo DS into his French class to play on mute under the desk, because Madame Broussard is as blind as a bat, and Jesse can't seem to grasp the language anyway.
Jesse's getting pretty good too, he won't lie. He actually knows right the combinations to use on Tekken, and he's mastered the analog sticks on the Xbox controller so that he can actually aim when playing Call Of Duty instead of just shooting his gun randomly. Oh, and best of all? He's top of the league table on Wii Bowling. Yeah, that's definitely the best part.
"So, uh... Mr.Eisenberg!" Mr.Parry calls from the front of the room. "Following integration, what is the general solution to this equation?"
The teacher knows that Jesse hasn't been listening, his eyes are shining and his smile is wide and sarcastic. Jesse loathes the guy, but Andrew adores him. The guy is a math teacher, so no surprise there. Mr. Parry is a twenty-something, short, brunette, ex-hippie with a beard. One of the other students has actually started a webpage called mrparrylookslikejesus.com with candids -of the teacher, of course. Not Jesus- and comparison photos. It was probably that guy Mark Zuckerberg that made it, the computer geek from Jesse's History class, it wouldn't be the first time he's done something like that.
"Well?" Mr.Parry says, "Do you know?"
"I don't. Sorry," Jesse replies coldly, eyes narrowed.
"What a shame."
A girl to Jesse's right, in fact, that same girl that called him a nerd two months ago in his first History class, laughs at the fact that he doesn't know the answer. That annoys Jesse to no end, he got made of for being good at something, and now he's being made fun of for being bad at something. He can't win. He rolls his eyes as Mr. Parry turns to write the correct solution to the equation on the board, he begins by saying, "So, what Mr. Eisenberg should have realised is that..."
Something hits Jesse on the back of the head.
Whatever it was, it didn't hurt, it was incredibly light, but Jesse rubs the back of his head anyway as he looks down at the floor around his seat. A piece of balled up paper rests to the side of his foot, he picks it up. After flattening it out, he recognises Joe's hand-writing straight away.
"Josh is at the door for you!"
Jesse frowns, and turns to look over his left shoulder at his best friend, sat in the back corner of the room with his white and yellow checked shirt wet and glued to his chest. Joe is one of those guys that feels the need to run his hands through his hair and spike it up like an idiot whenever it gets wet, and today is no exception.
"What?" Jesse mouths, an eyebrow raised.
Joe rolls his eyes and begins to wave his hands towards the front of class. Mr. Parry still has his back turned as he continues to explain another impossibly long equation with too many indices, so he doesn't notice any of this. "The door!" Joe yells in a whisper.
As Jesse turns to look at said door, he finds the face of Josh Pence grinning through the glass, jumping up and down, and waving some pieces of paper around. Jesse turns back to look at Joe, he shrugs at Jesse, this makes no sense to him either. Jesse then realises that this must have something to do with Josh's phase. Sports. Jesse glances at the clock above the board, five minutes to go before the end of class. Josh points to something beside himself, and mouths a few words too. Jesse doesn't understand what he's supposed to be saying, but he nods at Josh as if he does.
Jesse soon notices that the people around him are beginning to pack up for the end of class, so he does too, but slowly, drawing the process out in the hope of wasting these last five minutes. Then the bell rings, and Mr.Parry yells about how it's him that dismisses the class, not the bell, over the scraping of chairs and happy, end of math class chatter.
Joe comes up behind Jesse as he slings his bag over his shoulder, taps his elbow, and together they walk swiftly past their teacher before he can yell some more. Out in the hall, they find Josh sat down a bench that's been placed next to opening of the classroom door, hair and hoodie drenched from the rain outside, hunched over his phone as he texts some girl, probably.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Jesse asks as they approach the rower.
"I don't know, free period?" Joe shrugs. "Hey, man."
Josh looks up, grinning excitedly. "Hey! I come bearing gifts!" He holds out the pieces of paper he'd been waving around before.
"They're tickets," Jesse says simply, staring at them. Well, that was an anti-climax.
Josh rolls his eyes, "Thanks for that, Captain Obvious."
"No problem, Señor Sarcasm," Jess grins.
"Yeah, they're tickets, but what for?"
Jesse takes them from Josh and begins to scan the print, muttering below breath. "Madison Square Garden... Celtics... Knicks... Saturday, November 7th." His eyes widen almost comically with realisation as Josh nods up at him, biting his lip. "Oh my god, are these for a basketball game!?"
"Yes!" Josh jumps to his feet. "An NBA basketball game! Knicks v. Celtics, this Saturday. My uncle works at The Garden, so I got them dirt cheap. The seats are practically on the floor. What do you think?"
"This is brilliant!" Jesse's smile is uncharacteristically wide, partly because he's realised that there are in fact three tickets and maybe he can ask if Andrew can tag along. "I love basketball. Though, I'll admit, I have no idea what's going on most of the time, but regardless, I do really enjoy watching it."
"You got a favourite player?" Josh asks.
"Muggsy Bogues, you heard of him? He was the-"
"Shortest guy in the NBA." Josh grins.
Jesse nods, getting all excited. "I met him when I was twelve, you know. I freaked out, though, had no idea what to say to him."
Josh gapes. "Shit, no way!"
"I hate to break this up and everything, but who's the third ticket for?" Ah, Joe has noticed as well. He seems hopeful.
"Emma," Josh says, ignoring Joe's evident shock. "She's gonna drive us, the only other option was Justin and I know that would have pissed you off, and besides, I'm refuse to get a train."
All day, Jesse has looked pretty deflated, curls flattened into waves against his forehead because of the relentless rain, cheeks and nose red from the cold, but on the inside he's felt fine, giddy. Andrew held his hand this morning, all moist and warm from being stuffed deep into his wet jeans pocket. Oh, and in History class two hours ago, Andrew had remembered what Jesse had told him about Rosa Parks, then smiled gratefully at Jesse when Mr.Shannon told him that he was really starting to improve.
Now? Well, Jesse isn't upset, because let's face it, Josh is taking him to an NB-fucking-A basketball game (His inner twelve year is going insane right about now) but he would have liked Andrew to be there too, so that Jesse could at least prove that he wouldn't be changing as person as a result of all of this. Andrew isn't totally against this whole thing any more, he doesn't complain when Justin brings up their shopping trip -which should be happening quite soon, actually- he doesn't seem to mind it all, but Jesse's still worried.
He looks up at Josh wistfully, smiling a little. "Thank you so much, this is going to be amazing."
There's a brief moment of silence, then Joe breaks it by toeing, with his shoe, one of the many small, colourful boxes littered about Josh's feet. "What's up with all these boxes?"
"Oh, they're DVD box-sets, from Armie, for his part, you know? He suggests you watch Seinfeld, Frasier, The Big Bang Theory, and Numbers, which seems totally random, but whatever. As far as movies go, he'd like you to watch these," Josh produces some more DVD's from his backpack and begins to pile them up in Jesse's arms. "Point Break, Speed, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure -as well as the sequel, The Matrix one through three, and uh..." Josh glances over his shoulder, speaking quietly as he passes the last DVD over, "The Lake House."
"No Harry Potter? This is an outrage," Joe yells, so loudly that a few of the other students milling around actually stop to glare at him. He doesn't seem to care. He shakes his head and water flies everywhere, like a puppy getting out of a swimming pool. "You'd have thought that he would have at least recommended The Prisoner of Azkaban. That was a great movie!"
Jesse tries not to laugh, ignoring Joe's outburst. "Armie likes Keanu Reeves, huh?"
"He loves Keanu Reeves," Josh laughs, "Almost as much as Scrubs. Armie says that Keanu and Zach Braff are the only guys he'd even consider turning gay for. Oh, and you guys should probably swing by mine and Armie's on Friday, he wants you to pick one of those out, so we could have a movie night or something with the guys, I don't know."
"Will do, but you know, I can kind of see what Armie means about Keanu," Jesse replies, eyeing the cover of the Point Break DVD with a small smile on his face, thinking that maybe he'll choose that one for Friday. The only thing he doesn't say? "But he's no Andrew Garfield."
***
Jesse doesn't go with Point Break in the end, he just couldn't help himself, he watched it as soon as he got back to his dorm room on Wednesday evening after dinner. It's pretty safe to say that he wants a Keanu Reeves poster now, it's the best he can do in terms of his unrequited crushes, he can't just go and stick a picture of Andrew up on his wall, that'd be weird. But for now? Keanu will have to suffice.
So, clutching Armie's copy of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure -kitted out in an old t-shirt and his comfy grey sweatpants- Jesse walks with Joe up to Josh and Armie's dorm. There is yelling coming from inside the room, only one voice -no words, just noise. Happy noise- it sounds like Justin. Joe raises his eyebrows at Jesse and knocks the door, but no one calls out to say that it's okay to come in, so he just goes right ahead and opens it. Remaining on the threshold, Jesse gazes over the shoulder of his room mate. Josh and Justin are sat, Indian style, on the floor, facing one another, surrounded by Lego bricks.
"And that, my friend, is a motherfuckin' royal flush!" Justin cries, arms held out wide like the Vitruvian Man.
"Bitch, please!" Josh throws a handful of playing cards to the floor. "How the fuck are you so good at this?"
"Okay, what the hell is going on here?" Joe asks, a hint of laughter in his tone.
"They're playing Poker for Lego bricks!" Armie yells over the TV, turned up way too loud. Scrubs. He's laid on out Josh's bed again.
Jesse's eyes widen incredulously. Seriously, where do these guys come up with these stupid games?
"Dudes," Joe says, chuckling a little. "You know you're both rich enough to play for actual money, right?"
Emma is sat with them, eyes all wide and incredulous, she's not joining in, because it look as though she's not getting any of it. "Yeah, but they're both sore losers, so this is the only way," She looks up at Joe and Jesse can just tell that he's smiling, "...apparently."
"One of these is worth an imaginary one hundred dollars!" Justin cries happily, holding up a red brick, he has dozens of them in a pile at his feet. "A green is only worth one dollar, because one dollar bills are green."
"Just like all the other bills," Josh sighs, shaking his head. He looks to Armie. "Seriously, how is this guy winning? I have the plastic representation of seventy-two dollars here, and he's got a good two-thousand! How is he doing it? "
"Sheer, dumb luck?"
"Oh, would you just leave him alone!?"
With the kind of speed that would make a bullet jealous, Jesse's head whips to the right. Andrew's here! Sat on Armie's bed, hunched over his laptop. Pushing past Joe, Jesse moves to sit down next to him, smiling brightly, but Andrew holds a hand out to halt him, he's wearing fingerless gloves -Why? Jesse thinks- a black and white striped sweater, black jeans, and wow, he's actually done his hair for once.
"Come no closer!" He cries dramatically.
"Andrew, shut up," Jesse laughs, grabbing his hand -all woolly and scratchy from the gloves- but Andrew snatches it back and shuffles closer to the end of the bed, making a show of hiding his laptop screen. Jesse frowns, "You're not watching porn, are you?"
"No!" Andrew's eyes are wide, a deer in headlights. Bambi. "I'm working on your playlist here, and you're not allowed to see which songs I've chosen yet!"
Emma nods. "He's been working on it for a good two hours now."
"Well, Emma, it was a difficult process, and besides, I think I'm done now anyway. Yeah I am, so I'll just save that..." Andrew taps a few keys, closes his laptop, and places it on the floor "...and we're done!"
"Great." Emma says, rolling her eyes. "Finally."
"You can sit down now," Andrew turns to Jesse, gesturing to the spot beside him. "Have a seat, will you?"
As Jesse sits, Andrew lifts an arm to drape round his shoulders, and Jesse marvels at how well they piece together. His shoulder fits perfectly into the gap beneath Andrew's arm, and his head is at just the right height to rest on Andrew's shoulder. Jesse's not going to do that though, not just yet.
There's something crackly and lumpy squished between their thighs. "What's that?" Jesse asks, looking up.
"Oh," Andrew chuckles. A wonderful sound. With his spare hand, he reaches down into the gap between his and Jesse's legs, and produces a small plastic bag. "They're jelly beans, for the movie. Here, have some."
"You trying to fatten me up?" Jesse asks through a mouthful of candy.
"No, but you could sure use it, I'm not gonna lie to you," Andrew places his hand on Jesse's belly. "Look, I can feel your ribs."
"It's not my fault, I just can't seem to put on weight."
There's a glint in Andrew's eye as he looks down at Jesse, like he's planning something, trying not to laugh. "Hey, are you ticklish?"
"What?"
Andrew repeats himself, removing his gloves, eyebrows raised. "Are you ticklish?"
Jesse frowns. "I don't know, in some places yea-"
And he doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence because Andrew is on him, hands under Jesse's shirt, squeezing and tickling Jesse's sides -he's found the right spot- laughing manically, his head thrown back to expose his throat as Jesse's squirms and fights for breath, giggling -all high pitched like a little girl- eyes watering. "St-st... stop it! Andrew. P-please!"
"NEVER!" Andrew screams, and now Jesse is flat on his back with Andrew kneeling between his thighs. The tiniest portion of Jesse's brain -the one part that isn't concentrating on being tickled- is going into meltdown, because there's a gorgeous boy between his legs, with his hands all over his hips, stomach, ribs. Jesse tries to push him off, gripping Andrew's wrists, but he's too strong. Somewhere in the background, Jesse can hear the laughter of his friends, Emma's is the loudest.
"Andrew! I b-beg you... please stop!"
"Guys, please!" Armie calls from the other side of the room, an arm raised. "I'm totally straight, but I swear, if you pretty boys don't stop climbing all over each other then I'm gonna end up with a hard on, which will be very counter productive, because I'm trying to concentrate. This is the very first episode of Scrubs. This is where it all began."
"You've seen this episode about five hundred times, you idiot," Josh says.
Armie pays no attention to him. "Look! Look how young Zach is!"
Andrew sits up, pulling Jesse with him, all red and puffed out. They communicate using their slightly embarrassed smiles and subtle eye movements, and Andrew's arm is back around Jesse's shoulders, his body shaking from follow up chuckles as Jesse tries to re-arrange his shirt.
Every now and then Josh will huff about losing a few Lego bricks to Justin, but otherwise the room is quiet, except for the TV. On screen, JD comes running in, "I was, uh... I was paged."
"Aww, first day, Bambi. Carla will take care of you."
Jesse sits up dead straight, smiling, looking from Armie to Andrew. "Is, is that where the name is from?"
Armie laughs. "Yeah, on his first day Andrew had no fucking idea where he was, what he was doing, he had no clue. Did you, Bambi?"
"Well, in my defence, not only did I find myself in a new school where I knew no one, but I was in a new country as well, in case you don't remember!"
Sure, it's a pretty clever nickname, but Jesse had always thought that it had something to do with Andrew's big brown eyes that are sometimes way too expressive for his own good. Or, Jesse used to think, it had something to do with Andrew's legs, all skinny and spindly, stretching on for miles and miles.
"You know what? Fuck this," Josh yells randomly, throwing his cards down. "I give up, you win!"
Andrew brings his spare hand around to meet the one hanging limp over Jesse's shoulder, and claps for Justin, who performs a little victory dance on the floor. He has enough Lego bricks to build a scale model of the White House, except with all of Justin's bricks, it'd be red. Josh gets up, all in a huff, and sits down on his bed at Armie's feet.
The seven friends spend the following fifteen minutes in silence as they watch the end of the show. Jesse smiles as he looks over at Emma, sat on the floor between Justin and Joe, the latter shuffling closer and closer to her. Jesse adores all six of these people with such a passion. They make him feel like he belongs, like he's wanted -Andrew especially. Never in his life did Jesse think that he'd be sat in an awesome school, with an awesome group of friends, watching some silly sitcom, with a gorgeous guy draped all over his body.
The show reaches its end, Emma and Joe provide the lyrics for the instrumental that's playing over the credits, and Justin says that he'll take Jesse shopping a week this Saturday, if that's okay with him. Jesse looks to Andrew, but he's too busy laughing at Joe and Emma's terrible singing to have noticed, so Jesse just yells back a 'Yeah, that's fine' in response.
"Ship Sinker! Which one of the many brilliant Keanu films have you chosen for us tonight?" Armie asks loudly. The DVD has fallen onto the floor, Jesse retrieves it, waves it around a bit, and Armie cries, "That movie is most excellent!"
Joe mumbles something about Harry Potter -no change there- and Emma tells him to be quiet, shoving him playfully.
Armie closes the drapes so that the only source of light is coming from the TV screen, and puts the DVD in.
Throughout the entire film, the guys throw their arms into the air and scream "Wyld Stallyns!" whenever Bill and Ted do, except, they never know when it's coming, so by the time that they realise what's being said, all they actually manage to yell is "Stallyns!"
Jesse pulls his knees up to his chest and risks leaning to the side so that he's really snuggled into Andrew. He doesn't seem to mind it at all, Andrew has his hand in Jesse's hair, picking out individual curls, pulling them taught, and letting them spring back. Jesse looks up at him, Andrew's fixated on the TV screen, so what he's doing must be completely absentminded, natural, something that he can't help but do. Jesse smiles to himself in the dark, it feels really nice, tingly, making him sleepy. When he was little, if he couldn't sleep, his mom would read to him, book in one hand, the other in his hair, until he fell asleep. Jesse feels safe here with Andrew. Comforted by the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the heat of his body.
Armie gets up to fetch something out of his mini fridge.
Andrew removes his hand from Jesse's hair, and presses a finger into the side of his head, pushing against it until it's resting on Andrew's shoulder. Jesse resists the urge to squeal, biting his lip to keep a smile back, and somewhere in the background, Emma says, "Aww!"
"Right!" Armie cries, Andrew jolts with shock so that Jesse's head bounces. The rower rounds on the others, face lit down one side by the TV screen. "Who the fuck took my jelly beans!?"
***
Madison Square Garden isn't exactly the sort of place that people like Jesse Eisenberg would usually find themselves, with it's too bright lights, loud noises, and the presence of way, way too many other human beings.
Jesse, however, is shaking with excitement, he claps, he cheers, he screams. Emma has bought him a ridiculous foam finger that he can't help but wave around, and Josh let him borrow his Knicks jersey which he wears over a white t-shirt because it's way too big for him. Jesse can feel it. That almost electrical current that flows through every single fan, linking them together for this forty-eight minute period in which no one really cares about anything other than their team winning. He feels like he's part of something here. This is what he feels like when he's with Andrew.
Stoudemire scores and The Garden erupts, every single Knicks fan finds themselves on their feet, cheering without forming words -just noise- Jesse too. Josh does the same to his left, pumping his fists, and Emma to his right, jumping up and down. Jesse's smile hurts his cheeks and his heart is beating rapidly because for once in his life he has found that something he likes is cool. It's awesome. His home team are winning and he fully understands why.
"That was a three pointer, wasn't it!?" Jesse yells over to Josh, a little smug, because yeah, he really gets basketball now. He only read around thirty web pages to get to this point, but whatever.
"It was, and a fucking good one at that! I love you Amar'e Stoudemire!" Josh screams frantically, arms flailing.
Some guy a few rows back yells. "Hell yeah, I do too!"
"This game! This, this fucking game! Just, oh my god! We're up by twelve points, we're going to win I can feel it!"
The whistle is blown for half time, and Josh flops back down into his red plastic seat, running his hands through his hair. He's quiet for all of two seconds before he jumps up and says, "I need nachos, be right back. You guys want anything?"
"No, no we're fine, Honey," Emma says, voice raspier than usual from all the cheering she's been doing, and her lips are blue from the ridiculously large slushy she's been sipping on throughout the game. She smiles at Jesse, shoving him gently. "How great is this!?"
"It's amazing," Jesse cries, removing his foam finger. "This was such a good idea. I wish the others could have come, too."
"Like Andrew?" Emma grins as if she knows something that Jesse doesn't.
Jesse decides to play dumb, and looks away, at the aisle between seats, at the people leaving to go to the bathroom during half time, at the people who don't have impossibly intuitive red-headed friends. "Yeah, I guess Andrew."
"I know you like him." Without even having to look at her, Jesse can hear the smile in Emma's voice, and tries his hardest to keep himself from blushing, which is pretty much impossible. She giggles. "Don't even bother trying to deny it, I'm a girl, Jesse. I've spent the entirety of my adolescence obsessed with boys, I know how they work, even the gay ones. You like him, you really do. You want to have spindly-legged, curly-haired, Anglo-American babies with him."
"That's a biological impossibility," Jesse states simply.
He feels a hand on his chin, and Emma twists his face so that he has to look at her. "Stop avoiding the subject. Admit it."
Jesse looks down, there is it, that bubbly feeling in his chest, the nerves. It's only Emma, but saying aloud will make it true. No longer will it be this crazy, impossible notion in his head. The first step is admitting it, that's how you get over something, right? But, Jesse doesn't want to get over Andrew, this isn't an AA meeting, Andrew-aholics Anonymous, Jesse will think of a snappier name later.
Hi, I'm Jesse Eisenberg, and I have a full-blown, heart-wrenching, I-want-him-so-effing-bad, crush on Andrew Garfield.
"You're too smart for your own good, you know," Jesse says -so quietly that Emma has to lean in to hear him over the crowd- it's a way of admitting to it without really saying it. He likes that.
"I knew it," She grins, leaping onto him, pulling him into a hug. "Can you please be boyfriends now?"
Jesse's choking a little bit, Emma has her arms wrapped tight around his neck. "I'm working on it, but, one small problem. Andrew's straight as far as I'm aware."
Emma leans back, smiling sympathetically. "Oh sweetie. Andrew isn't straight. He's bi... well, um, bi-curious, I guess. He didn't fully realise that he was attracted to boys until about a year ago, just after he moved here. I'm the only one who knows, so..."
Okay, what? Jesse feels as though he's going to throw up, his stomach is clenching, he just manages to choke out two words. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, Honey, how could you not see it?"
"I could sort of see it, I always figured that he was a little bit... you know? But it's not that." Jesse's eyes widen with realisation, he feels as though he's going cry as the penny drops, as the light-bulb above his head switches on. His voice is thick. "This is what that was about, isn't it? When we first met, and you said that there was another reason why you were happy about me being gay. Oh my god, you, you... you want me to be his experiment, don't you? He's bi-curious, but you figured that you'd need to find a willing gay guy, so he'd could test out that curiosity, just to make sure. That's what I am, aren't I?"
Emma looks down. "Well..."
"Oh my god!" Jesse turns away from her, and that's it, he's crying. Hunched over his knees, not sure what to do as his heart splits down the middle, right in two, because for the last three months he's just been a pawn in Emma's little plan. "That's... that's why he didn't want me to change, isn't it? He wanted me to stay all naive and innocent like this so I wouldn't catch on to what he was doing, so that I'd be willing to do whatever he wants because I'd think that he..." Jesse sniffs hard "...really liked me."
Emma goes to put an arm around him, but he shrugs it off, and she looks so hurt.
"It's not like that any more though, Andrew had nothing to do with this, I didn't mention it to him, it was my idea," she says quietly, somehow, Jesse can still hear her over the raucous cheering of the crowd as the half-time cheerleaders come out. "Jesse, you're not an experiment, you were going to be for maybe a day, but you're too good for that, way too fucking good. He genuinely feels something for you, I can see it whenever you're together. He really likes you, so, so much. Please, I'm sorry. Besides, he didn't want you to change because he wanted to be stay all naive and stuff, he didn't want you to change because, believe it or fucking not, he adores you just the way that you are, and if you ever doubted that, I'd bet any money that he'd start singing that Bruno Mars song to you!"
"I still don't believe you," Jesse replies, wiping at his face. "People never like me like that, I figured that Andrew was just like this with everybody. I, I thought he was just one of those guys, you know? The one's that can get close to another person without having to over-analyse everything, born with impeccable social skills and a gravitational pull that draws lowly, lesser planets like myself, towards them."
"If anything, you're pulling him towards you," Emma replies softly, looking out across the court with rueful, tear filled eyes. The way she says it -her voice cracking in the middle- Jesse knows that she means it. She's sorry.
They're the only two people in the entire place that aren't making any sound.
Jesse's experiencing that feeling you get when you're going up the first steep slope on a roller-coaster, when you start to worry that maybe this was a bad idea. Knowing Andrew is like being on a roller-coaster. At first you're weary about it, like 'If I get too close to that I could end up with an injury', but as soon as it's over, you're thinking 'Again! Again! Again! I wanna go again!' With Andrew Garfield, Jesse has no idea what's coming next, but that's okay. Andrew is a harmless legal high, and Jesse is addicted.
Jesse continues on, out of nowhere. "Andrew's so good with you know, touching and closeness and other people in general. I figured that it was just something they taught the kids in England. He didn't know that Gibraltar is a real place, but he can put his arm around you so damn casually that you start to think 'Is this just a bro thing, or a protective paternal thing, or his way of saying 'I secretly like you, short, awkward boy'?"
"Well, I think that he secretly likes you, short, awkward -but very cute- boy," Emma turns, smiling a little. Jesse smiles back, not showing his teeth. "You want an example of Andrew's protective behaviour, then just take a look at how he is with Justin. He's stuck up for him for over a year, turned guerrilla candy thief for him, but that's it. You're different."
Jesse shakes his head. "Wow."
"People really like you, Jesse. I like you, Justin does, Armie and Josh do, before you came here Joe didn't shut up about you, and Andrew? He pretty much worships the ground you walk on. Don't you remember what happened on the movie night? Don't you remember him tickling you and hugging you and playing with your hair? Guys don't do that to other guys if they're relationship is platonic, they just don't."
Another endless moment of silence stretches out before them, the cheerleaders are asking the crowd to give them a K, but Emma and Jesse do not respond. Jesse sits up, chuckling to himself a little, and turns to Emma.
"Where did you learn all of this, about guys and stuff?" He asks.
Emma shrugs. "Online mostly, all those body language sites, you know."
Jesse chuckles below breath, elbows still on his knees when Josh returns.
He's carrying three large slushies and a box of nachos. "I know you guys didn't want anything bu-" he notes Jesse's red, puffy eyes, and frowns. "What did I miss?"
Jesse and Emma speak simultaneously, shaking their heads. "Nothing."
***
"Dude, you should totally get this one!"
Currently, Jesse is with Justin, shopping in a high-end mens clothing store that's blasting Ice Cube's Check Yourself at a volume way too high for Jesse's sensitive ears. This is the seventh store they've been to today and it seems to be Justin's favourite of the lot.
All of the furniture in this place is chrome, stainless steel, leather. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, are all bright white, it's like being on the inside of a spaceship, it's totally unnatural and too clean. Jesse is over by the jeans, because, well, they're safe. He knows where he is with jeans. Justin is on the other side of the store, holding up a weird looking jacket, he dances over to Jesse with it, bobbing his head along to the beat of the blaring rap song.
He holds the ridiculous jacket up to Jesse's chest, eyeing it appreciatively, voice soft. "Yeah, you should definitely buy this."
Jesse looks down at it, "I don't think so, and what's going on with the shoulders?"
"They're epaulettes," Justin replies with evident disbelief at Jesse's sheer ignorance when it comes to fashion.
"No, they're feathers. I'd look like Brandon Flowers if I wore this."
"Is that really such a bad thing? You've got the shoulders for it. Besides," Justin shakes his head, eyes wide, "you know who Brandon Flowers is?"
Jesse nods, "Joe's really into The Killers, and this jacket looks just like the one that Brandon wore in the video for that song, you know," Jesse begins to sing quietly, looking around in case anyone may be watching, "Are we human? Or are we dancer?"
"The lyric is 'Or are we denser?'"
"Oh, okay, yeah, that makes a lot more sense, but whatever, I'm not wearing that. Can't I, I don't know, just get these?" He points to a pair of blue jeans that are priced twenty dollars higher than any normal pair because someone's gone to the trouble of making them look worn in.
"No. They're exactly the same as the pair that you're wearing right now, we're getting you something different. Come on," Justin hangs the jacket up on a nearby rack, grabs Jesse's wrist, and drags him through the store, lecturing him over the music.
Jesse's worried that people are looking, but believe it or not, nobody is. Maybe this is considered normal here, a crazy guy in a suede fedora dragging a clueless teen around, yelling about different shade's of blue. Some are flattering apparently, but it depends on your skin tone, a blue too dark could make you look pale. Jesse's waiting for that Third Eye Blind song, Semi-Charmed Life, to start playing, and for the video montage to begin, in which he steps out of a changing room wearing lots of different outfits, and Justin gives him the thumbs up or thumbs down on them, smiling or frowning.
Justin stops abruptly in the dress-shirt aisle, Jesse's stumbles into his back.
"That one!" He points at a simple, cornflower blue button down, with tiny black buttons that could easily be hidden by a tie. Justin's clearly got the same idea. "I'm thinking that if we get you a black tie, a black suit-jacket, black pants, and a good pair of shoes, this'll look pretty damn good. I don't want Andrew to get pissy at me for changing you too much, so I think we'll be safe with this. What size are you?" Justin asks.
Jesse doesn't get a chance to answer, because Justin has a good eye for these things, he searches through the rack, and a shirt is in Jesse's arms, the right size too. A few aisles down, and a pair of slim-fit black pants are added to the pile. Fabric in various different forms is thrown into Jesse's arms t-shirts, hats, underwear, and Justin finally gives in and let's Jesse pick out a new pair of jeans. Justin's throwing out slang words all over the place.
"Oh man, this shirt would look sick on you, we're getting that!" It's a white screen printed V-neck with a picture of a lion on it, mid-roar. It's got silver sequins on it too, and glitter. Does Justin seriously think that Andrew would be okay with that? It's pretty douchey, so Jesse's not going to wear it, because Andrew would probably tear Justin a new one if he did, and Jesse likes Justin so he's not going to let that happen.
The pile of clothing is getting higher, until it reaches the point when Jesse can't see Justin any more. Jesse thinks that he may have lost his personal shopper somewhere in this cavernous store, with aisles like a labyrinth.
"Justin!" He calls, face hidden behind shirts, trying his best to speak over the music. "Timberlake! Where are you?" He growls. "Justin!"
"Here I am!" He appears behind Jesse, making the latter jump so that the clothes end up all over the floor. "Seriously dude, check out these cuff-links! They're little snake heads!"
Jesse says no to those as he picks the clothes up, because, according to Joe, Jesse is a Ravenclaw, and those cuff-links are way too Slytherin. If he were to wear them, he'd get the whole "House Pride" lecture from his room mate and Jesse just cannot be dealing with that again, because the last time that happened, Joe got him in a head lock and attempted to write 'wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure' across his face.
Jesse's a little worried though, about how he's going to be able to afford all of this, the guys did pitch in twenty dollars each but that's only one hundred and twenty altogether, but once he and Justin reach the checkout, Justin just whips out a platinum bank card and says that he's "got this." Jesse tries to protest but Justin waves him off.
The pair leave with about nine bags to add to the other five already packed into Justin's Range Rover. The pair work as a team to get it all into Justin's car, which isn't much of a task when you consider how big that car actually is. All the way back to school, Justin just cannot stop talking, about how Armie's stolen his prefect badge and won't give it back - "But it doesn't matter, I can get a new one pretty easily."- and a load of other things that Jesse really isn't interested in.
Jesse? Well, he can't stop thinking about Andrew, how he's going to react to all of this. What's he going to say when he sees Jesse in all of this stuff? Will he like it? Hate it? Will he yell and make another speech about how he likes Jesse just the way he is? Jesse hates to admit it, but kind of hopes so.
***
Jesse's never been to Justin and Andrew's dorm before, but yeah, it's no different to his and Joe's, Josh's and Armie's, except for the white boards. There's so many of them, resting on stands about the room, covered in equations written in Andrew's swirly hand-writing.
"For his advanced calculus class," Justin explains, moving around them with ease, Jesse knocks a couple over, and struggles to get them standing again. Justin points to another at the back of the room with a line graph on it. "Except that one, I think that's for economics."
Jesse dumps his bags onto Justin's bed, and asks, "Why does he do this?"
"That's just the way he learns. If Andrew really wants to understand something, then he'll surround himself in it."
On the right hand side of the room -in the exact same spot that Jesse's bed is placed in his and Joe's dorm- is Andrew's. His tartan covers are all in a pile at the foot, pillows concave in the middle, dented by Andrew's pretty head, all heavy with numbers. Jesse spots something white sticking out beneath one of Andrew's cushions, and tugs on it.
It's his book, Jesse's book, On The Road, and there's a book mark in it a few pages from the back. He really did read it. Jesse's chest goes tight beneath his hoodie and for some reason tears a threatening to make themselves known, because, this person gives a shit, like really gives a shit about Jesse. Andrew read his favourite book. He's not an experiment. No one would do this for someone they were experimenting with.
The tops of pink, green and orange post-its appear throughout the rest of the pages. Jesse chooses one at random, part two, chapter four. In Andrew's delicate script:
"I want to be like him. He's never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out, he knows time, he has nothing to do but rock back and forth. Man, he's the end! You see, if you go like him all the time you'll finally get it."
Beneath the quote, Andrew has written one solitary word: 'Jesse'.
What? It's been taken completely out of context, but regardless, if anything that quote would describe Andrew, the way that Jesse sees Andrew, not Jesse himself. This is so backwards but in the most wonderful of ways, Jesse feels golden. He roots through his jeans pockets, and produces a pen. Beneath Andrew's brief transcription, Jesse writes: "Is that really how you see me?"
"Hey, is that any good?" Justin appears at Jesse's shoulder.
Jesse closes the book quickly. "What, this? Yeah, it's brilliant."
"I thought as much," Jesse can hear Justin step back over to his side of the room, ruffling through shopping bags. "He's read it four times already."
Jesse gets a little choked up as he smiles, one side of his mouth curling up at the corner. "Four times," he whispers incredulously, and lifts Andrew's pillows to the put the book back.
"Here, you should put these on, I want to see how they look on you," Justin holds out the blue shirt and black pants from before. Jesse takes the clothes, and Justin makes a show of turning his back on him. "I won't look, I promise."
So, Jesse dresses, and that shirt? Wow, surprisingly soft. As he slips the pants on, he realises that they're no where near as uncomfortable as they had looked in the store. They're fitted, but not tight, something Andrew would wear. Jesse feels like Andrew, confident, sexy, like he can do anything.
He lets Justin know that he's done, and the Head Prefect turns back around. "Shit! Check you out!"
"How do I look?" Jesse smiles sheepishly, looking down. It's a pretty stupid question, because Jesse knows that he looks good without having to be told. He marvels at this, at the effect a new set of clothes can have on a person. He understands Justin now, he looks good all the time, so he feels good all the time. The guy hasn't got a bad bone in his body, he never stops smiling. He doesn't give a shit about what Armie and Josh have to say behind his back, because in his heart of hearts, Justin knows that he's a pretty decent guy.
And for once, Jesse feels the same.
"Does it look okay? Come here, let me get the rest of this on you!" Justin pulls Jesse forward, ties his tie, helps him get his jacket on, dusts off his shoulders, and tells him to get his new shoes on. Jesse does just that. Justin looks him over, a hand to his mouth, deep in thought. "This... this ensemble, needs something more... I know!"
With unprecedented agility, Justin moves over to his dresser, the top of which is littered with self-care products. Stuff to make his hair look great, to make him smell delicious, to make his skin silky smooth. He grabs a pot of hair gel, dunks his hand into it, and moves towards Jesse in an oddly threatening way, eyes gleaming, like a creepy, slimy creature from the deep.
"What are you doing?" Jesse asks, backing away. "You're not using that stuff on me."
"Trust me, Jesse. I know how to style curly hair, if you don't like it, you can wash it out."
Jesse eyes Justin's hand for a moment, dripping with pale blue goo. Justin's hair does look pretty good, Jesse won't lie. Neat and tidy, perfect corkscrew curls -unlike Jesse's, all unpredictable and uncontrollable, but Andrew likes it that way. Though, Andrew may like it better this way, the way that Justin wants it. Jesse decides that it's worth a shot, right? It's just hair after all, what's the big deal? He steps forward, sighing. "Just do it."
Justin's smile could split his face, he rubs his hands together. "Yes!"
And then a pair of warm hands, coated in cold gel, are on Jesse's head. Gentle but forceful all at the same time, manipulating his curls, taming them. Jesse cannot see what's going on up there on his scalp, but Justin's got his bottom lip sucked into his mouth with concentration, and Jesse can actually feel it as thick strands of his hair go limp, fall into place, slightly damp against his forehead. It feels weird, having another person's hands in his hair, but he doesn't have to endure it for long, as Justin is done within a minute or so.
He pauses momentarily, taking his hands back, then reaches out to tug on one particular section of Jesse's hair, and apparently, he's done. "Perfect. I am a genius!"
Justin whips out a mirror from under his bed, and holds it up to Jesse's face, grinning with triumph.
No. No. Jesse shakes his head. No. That can't be him in that reflection, all big blue eyes -enhanced even further by that shirt- chiseled jaw, broad shoulders. No. He reaches up, touches his hair, it doesn't spring up or bounce back, it's behaving for once. "No fucking way. There's, there is hope for everybody." He smiles incredulously, his teeth seem even whiter than usual, contrasting with all that black.
"Come on, this guy," Justin gestures to Jesse's reflection, then to the man himself, "has always been in there, underneath all those over-sized hoodies and worn out jeans. Everyone has potential. You were a diamond anyway, and now? You're a super-duper shiny diamond."
Jesse's finding it difficult to decide, what must he have done in a past life to deserve a group of friends as wonderful as these? That guy in the mirror, the suited and booted guy -with hair all ripply and wet looking like ocean waves- may not be the guy he wants to spend the rest of his life as, but that doesn't matter for now. The compliments from Justin, the fact that Joe never shut up about him before he came here, the speech from Emma at the basketball game, the quote that Andrew took from his favourite book to describe Jesse specifically, and the new look, however temporary, have given Jesse a little ego boost. He feels like he's worth something now, like maybe, he's actually got a chance.
Jesse has his back to it, but he hears the dorm room door open, and stiffens.
It's Andrew, his voice a mixture of tiredness and relief, he's probably just completed a monstrous piece of homework. "Hey Justin, I was down at the library using the computers, so got those biology books for you. Have you been out with Jesse ye- Oh hi! Who's this?"
Justin grins down at Jesse. "He's talking to you, man."
Jesse gulps, here it is. He turns around slowly. "Hey."
Prior to this point, Jesse has always figured that double-takes were the sort of things that happened only in movies, but that's not true at all. Andrew goes to say 'Hi' again, all casual, clearly thinking that Jesse is somebody else, but then realisation dawns upon him within a split second, to the point where the simple word 'Hi' comes out like "H-uhh!" His mouth slack like a goldfish, and his eyes are wide, living up to Jesse's own interpretation of the nickname, Bambi.
"Jesse," Andrew chokes out, cheeks flushing, eyes darting all over the room, from Jesse's face, down to his feet and back up again. "Jesse, wh... what happened? Wow."
"I happened!" Justin cries gleefully.
Jesse sees Andrew's Adam's-apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallows, he looks torn. "You look different... really nice," Andrew breathes.
"Thank you," Jesse replies quietly.
"Oh God, this is awkward!" Justin yells, throwing his arms up. He pushes Jesse forward, but his words are aimed at Andrew. "You can do better than nice, come on! Tell him how sexy he looks."
"Justin!" Jesse cries, turning around. Sure, Jesse would love to hear Andrew tell him that he's sexy, but he'd rather he wasn't pushed into it.
"What? It's true, I'm as straight as they come, but I know a good looking guy when I see-"
"You look really sexy."
Justin's head flies up, Jesse spins round, and Andrew's beet red, hands stuffed into the pockets of his chino's, eyes averted. Okay, so this is definitely a dream, Jesse has decided. He's never looked this good before, he's never been referred to as 'sexy' before, so this has got to be a dream. Yes. He refuses to believe what Andrew has just said, because he didn't actually see him say it. Jesse's hearing voices, he infers. He's going crazy.
Andrew's tugging on the strap of his messenger bag now, as if he's trying to break it, and suddenly the floor is the most interesting thing in the world to him. Jesse cannot see his face, but he knows Andrew is speaking, because the the hollows of his cheeks deepen as he opens his mouth to form the words. "You... you look gorgeous," he says. "That outfit really suits you."
"And to think, you were against this whole thing," Jesse can hear the smile in Justin's voice, he's resisting the urge to turn around and tell him to get out, but this is his dorm, so Jesse couldn't really do that.
"This, this is great, sure. But, I still prefer you the way you were before, Jesse. You've always looked good." Andrew smiles to himself, "even in your little Pacman t-shirts and rainbow coloured sneakers. I told you the first time we met, remember? You're perfection in a Gap sweatshirt. I meant that in every sense of the word." Andrews slows down, and his voice goes soft. "You've always been gorgeous."
And Jesse could just faint right there, he really could.
Emma was right, Emma was fucking right. Damn her. Jesse can't even be a little bit mad at her any more.
No guy, Jesse is pretty sure of it now, would tell another guy -very seriously- that he looks gorgeous, if he didn't at least like him a little bit. Sure, super macho jock guys may slap each other's ass from time to time, and call each other 'sexy motherfuckers' when they're drunk or after they score in a game or something, but it's not serious. This is. No guy goes all red like he's just been caught doing something bad, no guy stumbles over his words and averts his eyes like Andrew did. He means it, and because he meant it, Jesse knows it's true.
"Oh, I... I made this for you," Andrew says after God knows how long spent in silence. He rummages around in his bag and produces a CD, he holds it out to Jesse. "It's your mix CD."
As Jesse takes it, Andrew looks up, cheeks all pink and blotchy from his earlier embarrassment, smiling just a little bit as if to say, You get it now?
Slipped into the front of the jewel case is a piece of paper, on which Andrew has written the song titles. The CD is entitled, For Jesse.
For Jesse. No one else. Andrew didn't make it for any body else, it could never be given to anyone else. It's for Jesse. He never heard of any of them -well no, he's heard of one- but already, he knows that they're going to be some of his favourite songs.
"Sal Paradise? Just like the guy from On The Road."
"Yeah," Andrew grins sheepishly. "I always liked that track, but thanks to you, I really get it now. The whole song is based on that book, and the CD? It's... it's based on you."
Jesse's heart is in his throat and his lungs are inexplicably devoid of air. He coughs, choking over his shock as he grins.
The corners of his mouth are in fact dying to stretch up to his ears, he's smiling that hard. He's fighting it, and it's making his cheeks hurt, but he doesn't want to look like a goofy idiot after all this work Justin's put in. His hands are shaking and his belly aches for no real reason and his heart is ready to jump out of his chest. Jesse wants to scream with joy, he wants to cry, he wants to burst into song. This is no fucking dream, because no dream is this good.
~
A/N: To see the tracklisting of Andrew's playlist, go HERE.
A/N 2: The lovely outfit that Justin got for Jesse is based on THIS BAD-BOY.
Part Four
Part: Three
Word Count: 9,595
Previous Parts: Prologue | Part One | Part Two
~
It's the first week of November -Wednesday- and Jesse is sat in the middle row of his fourth period math class, gripping his pen so tightly it may break and willing his brain to recall at least some of the lecture Andrew had given him about differential equations. He has scribbled down a jumble of numbers and letters, ensured that they are in the correct order, and he's even colour coded a few of them, but it's just not helping.
In the top right-hand corner of the page, he writes: 'This makes no sense at all, see Andrew... again'. Which is all too fine with Jesse, he'll happily see Andrew all day, every day, even if they had conversations solely about math, Jesse would still do it.
His mind begins to wander.
Andrew is rarely away from Jesse these days. He meets Jesse outside of his and Joe's dorm every morning to walk him to his first period class, and at the end of the day to walk him back. Sometimes, if their classes are close enough, Andrew will meet Jesse between periods. They always sit next to one another during meal times, and their tutoring sessions have doubled. Jesse thinks that maybe this is Andrew's way of keeping an eye on him, making sure that his personality doesn't really change as a result of this crazy makeover that the guys are performing on him. Jesse doesn't mind. He likes the attention, and he's been getting so much of it recently.
All this extra time spent together, the close proximity -the fact that they might as well be sewn at the hip during History class because Andrew insists on shuffling his chair over until the length of his thigh is pressed into Jesse's- it's making Jesse appreciate all of the tiny little things that other people wouldn't notice about Andrew.
Like this morning, for example, it's been raining all day, that kind of heavy, unforgiving rain that batters the windows, soaks you to the very skin, and makes you feel gooey and miserable all day because your shoes end up filled with water.
Jesse had noticed -after Andrew had gripped his hand and ushered him quickly across The Square- the way in which the rain drops had caught in Andrew's hair -like the morning dew on blades of grass- and that they turned into small, shiny, spherical rainbows when the light hit them. Jesse also knows that there are six freckles on the back of Andrew's neck, and Jesse can just tell when Andrew has been in a room, because it'll smell just like him. The musky smell of a flannel shirt -three days worn- and his designer brand cologne that was probably endorsed by some celebrity.
Jesse smiles as he begins to fill the bottom left-hand corner of the page with dozens of tiny A's. Loopy, cursive, stupidly flamboyant A's, the kind of A's that Andrew uses when he signs his own name -Andrew doesn't actually use capitals, but slightly larger, lower-case A's. Jesse feels as though he's stepped out some kind of corny teen movie as he does this. He's totally smitten. Maybe, he thinks, this is what Britney had been doing seconds before the opening of the video for Baby One More Time. Though at the same time, he kind of hopes not, because now he's picturing himself with pigtails and fluffy pink hair ties. Jesse drops his pen at the thought. His hand aches from writing, he flexes his fingers.
He glances down at his hands and chuckles a little under his breath at how flat and defined the pads of his thumbs have become. Phase one of Jesse's personality overhaul has already begun -Yes, Jesse refers to them as phases, but never aloud- the simplest of the phases. Joe's phase. Video games.
Jesse's thumbs have ended up this way because whenever he isn't eating, sleeping, with Andrew, studying, or actually in school, Joe has Jesse playing the PlayStation, the Xbox, sometimes the Wii. Jesse really likes Mario Kart. On a few occasions, Joe has even requested that Jesse take his spare Nintendo DS into his French class to play on mute under the desk, because Madame Broussard is as blind as a bat, and Jesse can't seem to grasp the language anyway.
Jesse's getting pretty good too, he won't lie. He actually knows right the combinations to use on Tekken, and he's mastered the analog sticks on the Xbox controller so that he can actually aim when playing Call Of Duty instead of just shooting his gun randomly. Oh, and best of all? He's top of the league table on Wii Bowling. Yeah, that's definitely the best part.
"So, uh... Mr.Eisenberg!" Mr.Parry calls from the front of the room. "Following integration, what is the general solution to this equation?"
The teacher knows that Jesse hasn't been listening, his eyes are shining and his smile is wide and sarcastic. Jesse loathes the guy, but Andrew adores him. The guy is a math teacher, so no surprise there. Mr. Parry is a twenty-something, short, brunette, ex-hippie with a beard. One of the other students has actually started a webpage called mrparrylookslikejesus.com with candids -of the teacher, of course. Not Jesus- and comparison photos. It was probably that guy Mark Zuckerberg that made it, the computer geek from Jesse's History class, it wouldn't be the first time he's done something like that.
"Well?" Mr.Parry says, "Do you know?"
"I don't. Sorry," Jesse replies coldly, eyes narrowed.
"What a shame."
A girl to Jesse's right, in fact, that same girl that called him a nerd two months ago in his first History class, laughs at the fact that he doesn't know the answer. That annoys Jesse to no end, he got made of for being good at something, and now he's being made fun of for being bad at something. He can't win. He rolls his eyes as Mr. Parry turns to write the correct solution to the equation on the board, he begins by saying, "So, what Mr. Eisenberg should have realised is that..."
Something hits Jesse on the back of the head.
Whatever it was, it didn't hurt, it was incredibly light, but Jesse rubs the back of his head anyway as he looks down at the floor around his seat. A piece of balled up paper rests to the side of his foot, he picks it up. After flattening it out, he recognises Joe's hand-writing straight away.
"Josh is at the door for you!"
Jesse frowns, and turns to look over his left shoulder at his best friend, sat in the back corner of the room with his white and yellow checked shirt wet and glued to his chest. Joe is one of those guys that feels the need to run his hands through his hair and spike it up like an idiot whenever it gets wet, and today is no exception.
"What?" Jesse mouths, an eyebrow raised.
Joe rolls his eyes and begins to wave his hands towards the front of class. Mr. Parry still has his back turned as he continues to explain another impossibly long equation with too many indices, so he doesn't notice any of this. "The door!" Joe yells in a whisper.
As Jesse turns to look at said door, he finds the face of Josh Pence grinning through the glass, jumping up and down, and waving some pieces of paper around. Jesse turns back to look at Joe, he shrugs at Jesse, this makes no sense to him either. Jesse then realises that this must have something to do with Josh's phase. Sports. Jesse glances at the clock above the board, five minutes to go before the end of class. Josh points to something beside himself, and mouths a few words too. Jesse doesn't understand what he's supposed to be saying, but he nods at Josh as if he does.
Jesse soon notices that the people around him are beginning to pack up for the end of class, so he does too, but slowly, drawing the process out in the hope of wasting these last five minutes. Then the bell rings, and Mr.Parry yells about how it's him that dismisses the class, not the bell, over the scraping of chairs and happy, end of math class chatter.
Joe comes up behind Jesse as he slings his bag over his shoulder, taps his elbow, and together they walk swiftly past their teacher before he can yell some more. Out in the hall, they find Josh sat down a bench that's been placed next to opening of the classroom door, hair and hoodie drenched from the rain outside, hunched over his phone as he texts some girl, probably.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Jesse asks as they approach the rower.
"I don't know, free period?" Joe shrugs. "Hey, man."
Josh looks up, grinning excitedly. "Hey! I come bearing gifts!" He holds out the pieces of paper he'd been waving around before.
"They're tickets," Jesse says simply, staring at them. Well, that was an anti-climax.
Josh rolls his eyes, "Thanks for that, Captain Obvious."
"No problem, Señor Sarcasm," Jess grins.
"Yeah, they're tickets, but what for?"
Jesse takes them from Josh and begins to scan the print, muttering below breath. "Madison Square Garden... Celtics... Knicks... Saturday, November 7th." His eyes widen almost comically with realisation as Josh nods up at him, biting his lip. "Oh my god, are these for a basketball game!?"
"Yes!" Josh jumps to his feet. "An NBA basketball game! Knicks v. Celtics, this Saturday. My uncle works at The Garden, so I got them dirt cheap. The seats are practically on the floor. What do you think?"
"This is brilliant!" Jesse's smile is uncharacteristically wide, partly because he's realised that there are in fact three tickets and maybe he can ask if Andrew can tag along. "I love basketball. Though, I'll admit, I have no idea what's going on most of the time, but regardless, I do really enjoy watching it."
"You got a favourite player?" Josh asks.
"Muggsy Bogues, you heard of him? He was the-"
"Shortest guy in the NBA." Josh grins.
Jesse nods, getting all excited. "I met him when I was twelve, you know. I freaked out, though, had no idea what to say to him."
Josh gapes. "Shit, no way!"
"I hate to break this up and everything, but who's the third ticket for?" Ah, Joe has noticed as well. He seems hopeful.
"Emma," Josh says, ignoring Joe's evident shock. "She's gonna drive us, the only other option was Justin and I know that would have pissed you off, and besides, I'm refuse to get a train."
All day, Jesse has looked pretty deflated, curls flattened into waves against his forehead because of the relentless rain, cheeks and nose red from the cold, but on the inside he's felt fine, giddy. Andrew held his hand this morning, all moist and warm from being stuffed deep into his wet jeans pocket. Oh, and in History class two hours ago, Andrew had remembered what Jesse had told him about Rosa Parks, then smiled gratefully at Jesse when Mr.Shannon told him that he was really starting to improve.
Now? Well, Jesse isn't upset, because let's face it, Josh is taking him to an NB-fucking-A basketball game (His inner twelve year is going insane right about now) but he would have liked Andrew to be there too, so that Jesse could at least prove that he wouldn't be changing as person as a result of all of this. Andrew isn't totally against this whole thing any more, he doesn't complain when Justin brings up their shopping trip -which should be happening quite soon, actually- he doesn't seem to mind it all, but Jesse's still worried.
He looks up at Josh wistfully, smiling a little. "Thank you so much, this is going to be amazing."
There's a brief moment of silence, then Joe breaks it by toeing, with his shoe, one of the many small, colourful boxes littered about Josh's feet. "What's up with all these boxes?"
"Oh, they're DVD box-sets, from Armie, for his part, you know? He suggests you watch Seinfeld, Frasier, The Big Bang Theory, and Numbers, which seems totally random, but whatever. As far as movies go, he'd like you to watch these," Josh produces some more DVD's from his backpack and begins to pile them up in Jesse's arms. "Point Break, Speed, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure -as well as the sequel, The Matrix one through three, and uh..." Josh glances over his shoulder, speaking quietly as he passes the last DVD over, "The Lake House."
"No Harry Potter? This is an outrage," Joe yells, so loudly that a few of the other students milling around actually stop to glare at him. He doesn't seem to care. He shakes his head and water flies everywhere, like a puppy getting out of a swimming pool. "You'd have thought that he would have at least recommended The Prisoner of Azkaban. That was a great movie!"
Jesse tries not to laugh, ignoring Joe's outburst. "Armie likes Keanu Reeves, huh?"
"He loves Keanu Reeves," Josh laughs, "Almost as much as Scrubs. Armie says that Keanu and Zach Braff are the only guys he'd even consider turning gay for. Oh, and you guys should probably swing by mine and Armie's on Friday, he wants you to pick one of those out, so we could have a movie night or something with the guys, I don't know."
"Will do, but you know, I can kind of see what Armie means about Keanu," Jesse replies, eyeing the cover of the Point Break DVD with a small smile on his face, thinking that maybe he'll choose that one for Friday. The only thing he doesn't say? "But he's no Andrew Garfield."
***
Jesse doesn't go with Point Break in the end, he just couldn't help himself, he watched it as soon as he got back to his dorm room on Wednesday evening after dinner. It's pretty safe to say that he wants a Keanu Reeves poster now, it's the best he can do in terms of his unrequited crushes, he can't just go and stick a picture of Andrew up on his wall, that'd be weird. But for now? Keanu will have to suffice.
So, clutching Armie's copy of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure -kitted out in an old t-shirt and his comfy grey sweatpants- Jesse walks with Joe up to Josh and Armie's dorm. There is yelling coming from inside the room, only one voice -no words, just noise. Happy noise- it sounds like Justin. Joe raises his eyebrows at Jesse and knocks the door, but no one calls out to say that it's okay to come in, so he just goes right ahead and opens it. Remaining on the threshold, Jesse gazes over the shoulder of his room mate. Josh and Justin are sat, Indian style, on the floor, facing one another, surrounded by Lego bricks.
"And that, my friend, is a motherfuckin' royal flush!" Justin cries, arms held out wide like the Vitruvian Man.
"Bitch, please!" Josh throws a handful of playing cards to the floor. "How the fuck are you so good at this?"
"Okay, what the hell is going on here?" Joe asks, a hint of laughter in his tone.
"They're playing Poker for Lego bricks!" Armie yells over the TV, turned up way too loud. Scrubs. He's laid on out Josh's bed again.
Jesse's eyes widen incredulously. Seriously, where do these guys come up with these stupid games?
"Dudes," Joe says, chuckling a little. "You know you're both rich enough to play for actual money, right?"
Emma is sat with them, eyes all wide and incredulous, she's not joining in, because it look as though she's not getting any of it. "Yeah, but they're both sore losers, so this is the only way," She looks up at Joe and Jesse can just tell that he's smiling, "...apparently."
"One of these is worth an imaginary one hundred dollars!" Justin cries happily, holding up a red brick, he has dozens of them in a pile at his feet. "A green is only worth one dollar, because one dollar bills are green."
"Just like all the other bills," Josh sighs, shaking his head. He looks to Armie. "Seriously, how is this guy winning? I have the plastic representation of seventy-two dollars here, and he's got a good two-thousand! How is he doing it? "
"Sheer, dumb luck?"
"Oh, would you just leave him alone!?"
With the kind of speed that would make a bullet jealous, Jesse's head whips to the right. Andrew's here! Sat on Armie's bed, hunched over his laptop. Pushing past Joe, Jesse moves to sit down next to him, smiling brightly, but Andrew holds a hand out to halt him, he's wearing fingerless gloves -Why? Jesse thinks- a black and white striped sweater, black jeans, and wow, he's actually done his hair for once.
"Come no closer!" He cries dramatically.
"Andrew, shut up," Jesse laughs, grabbing his hand -all woolly and scratchy from the gloves- but Andrew snatches it back and shuffles closer to the end of the bed, making a show of hiding his laptop screen. Jesse frowns, "You're not watching porn, are you?"
"No!" Andrew's eyes are wide, a deer in headlights. Bambi. "I'm working on your playlist here, and you're not allowed to see which songs I've chosen yet!"
Emma nods. "He's been working on it for a good two hours now."
"Well, Emma, it was a difficult process, and besides, I think I'm done now anyway. Yeah I am, so I'll just save that..." Andrew taps a few keys, closes his laptop, and places it on the floor "...and we're done!"
"Great." Emma says, rolling her eyes. "Finally."
"You can sit down now," Andrew turns to Jesse, gesturing to the spot beside him. "Have a seat, will you?"
As Jesse sits, Andrew lifts an arm to drape round his shoulders, and Jesse marvels at how well they piece together. His shoulder fits perfectly into the gap beneath Andrew's arm, and his head is at just the right height to rest on Andrew's shoulder. Jesse's not going to do that though, not just yet.
There's something crackly and lumpy squished between their thighs. "What's that?" Jesse asks, looking up.
"Oh," Andrew chuckles. A wonderful sound. With his spare hand, he reaches down into the gap between his and Jesse's legs, and produces a small plastic bag. "They're jelly beans, for the movie. Here, have some."
"You trying to fatten me up?" Jesse asks through a mouthful of candy.
"No, but you could sure use it, I'm not gonna lie to you," Andrew places his hand on Jesse's belly. "Look, I can feel your ribs."
"It's not my fault, I just can't seem to put on weight."
There's a glint in Andrew's eye as he looks down at Jesse, like he's planning something, trying not to laugh. "Hey, are you ticklish?"
"What?"
Andrew repeats himself, removing his gloves, eyebrows raised. "Are you ticklish?"
Jesse frowns. "I don't know, in some places yea-"
And he doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence because Andrew is on him, hands under Jesse's shirt, squeezing and tickling Jesse's sides -he's found the right spot- laughing manically, his head thrown back to expose his throat as Jesse's squirms and fights for breath, giggling -all high pitched like a little girl- eyes watering. "St-st... stop it! Andrew. P-please!"
"NEVER!" Andrew screams, and now Jesse is flat on his back with Andrew kneeling between his thighs. The tiniest portion of Jesse's brain -the one part that isn't concentrating on being tickled- is going into meltdown, because there's a gorgeous boy between his legs, with his hands all over his hips, stomach, ribs. Jesse tries to push him off, gripping Andrew's wrists, but he's too strong. Somewhere in the background, Jesse can hear the laughter of his friends, Emma's is the loudest.
"Andrew! I b-beg you... please stop!"
"Guys, please!" Armie calls from the other side of the room, an arm raised. "I'm totally straight, but I swear, if you pretty boys don't stop climbing all over each other then I'm gonna end up with a hard on, which will be very counter productive, because I'm trying to concentrate. This is the very first episode of Scrubs. This is where it all began."
"You've seen this episode about five hundred times, you idiot," Josh says.
Armie pays no attention to him. "Look! Look how young Zach is!"
Andrew sits up, pulling Jesse with him, all red and puffed out. They communicate using their slightly embarrassed smiles and subtle eye movements, and Andrew's arm is back around Jesse's shoulders, his body shaking from follow up chuckles as Jesse tries to re-arrange his shirt.
Every now and then Josh will huff about losing a few Lego bricks to Justin, but otherwise the room is quiet, except for the TV. On screen, JD comes running in, "I was, uh... I was paged."
"Aww, first day, Bambi. Carla will take care of you."
Jesse sits up dead straight, smiling, looking from Armie to Andrew. "Is, is that where the name is from?"
Armie laughs. "Yeah, on his first day Andrew had no fucking idea where he was, what he was doing, he had no clue. Did you, Bambi?"
"Well, in my defence, not only did I find myself in a new school where I knew no one, but I was in a new country as well, in case you don't remember!"
Sure, it's a pretty clever nickname, but Jesse had always thought that it had something to do with Andrew's big brown eyes that are sometimes way too expressive for his own good. Or, Jesse used to think, it had something to do with Andrew's legs, all skinny and spindly, stretching on for miles and miles.
"You know what? Fuck this," Josh yells randomly, throwing his cards down. "I give up, you win!"
Andrew brings his spare hand around to meet the one hanging limp over Jesse's shoulder, and claps for Justin, who performs a little victory dance on the floor. He has enough Lego bricks to build a scale model of the White House, except with all of Justin's bricks, it'd be red. Josh gets up, all in a huff, and sits down on his bed at Armie's feet.
The seven friends spend the following fifteen minutes in silence as they watch the end of the show. Jesse smiles as he looks over at Emma, sat on the floor between Justin and Joe, the latter shuffling closer and closer to her. Jesse adores all six of these people with such a passion. They make him feel like he belongs, like he's wanted -Andrew especially. Never in his life did Jesse think that he'd be sat in an awesome school, with an awesome group of friends, watching some silly sitcom, with a gorgeous guy draped all over his body.
The show reaches its end, Emma and Joe provide the lyrics for the instrumental that's playing over the credits, and Justin says that he'll take Jesse shopping a week this Saturday, if that's okay with him. Jesse looks to Andrew, but he's too busy laughing at Joe and Emma's terrible singing to have noticed, so Jesse just yells back a 'Yeah, that's fine' in response.
"Ship Sinker! Which one of the many brilliant Keanu films have you chosen for us tonight?" Armie asks loudly. The DVD has fallen onto the floor, Jesse retrieves it, waves it around a bit, and Armie cries, "That movie is most excellent!"
Joe mumbles something about Harry Potter -no change there- and Emma tells him to be quiet, shoving him playfully.
Armie closes the drapes so that the only source of light is coming from the TV screen, and puts the DVD in.
Throughout the entire film, the guys throw their arms into the air and scream "Wyld Stallyns!" whenever Bill and Ted do, except, they never know when it's coming, so by the time that they realise what's being said, all they actually manage to yell is "Stallyns!"
Jesse pulls his knees up to his chest and risks leaning to the side so that he's really snuggled into Andrew. He doesn't seem to mind it at all, Andrew has his hand in Jesse's hair, picking out individual curls, pulling them taught, and letting them spring back. Jesse looks up at him, Andrew's fixated on the TV screen, so what he's doing must be completely absentminded, natural, something that he can't help but do. Jesse smiles to himself in the dark, it feels really nice, tingly, making him sleepy. When he was little, if he couldn't sleep, his mom would read to him, book in one hand, the other in his hair, until he fell asleep. Jesse feels safe here with Andrew. Comforted by the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the heat of his body.
Armie gets up to fetch something out of his mini fridge.
Andrew removes his hand from Jesse's hair, and presses a finger into the side of his head, pushing against it until it's resting on Andrew's shoulder. Jesse resists the urge to squeal, biting his lip to keep a smile back, and somewhere in the background, Emma says, "Aww!"
"Right!" Armie cries, Andrew jolts with shock so that Jesse's head bounces. The rower rounds on the others, face lit down one side by the TV screen. "Who the fuck took my jelly beans!?"
***
Madison Square Garden isn't exactly the sort of place that people like Jesse Eisenberg would usually find themselves, with it's too bright lights, loud noises, and the presence of way, way too many other human beings.
Jesse, however, is shaking with excitement, he claps, he cheers, he screams. Emma has bought him a ridiculous foam finger that he can't help but wave around, and Josh let him borrow his Knicks jersey which he wears over a white t-shirt because it's way too big for him. Jesse can feel it. That almost electrical current that flows through every single fan, linking them together for this forty-eight minute period in which no one really cares about anything other than their team winning. He feels like he's part of something here. This is what he feels like when he's with Andrew.
Stoudemire scores and The Garden erupts, every single Knicks fan finds themselves on their feet, cheering without forming words -just noise- Jesse too. Josh does the same to his left, pumping his fists, and Emma to his right, jumping up and down. Jesse's smile hurts his cheeks and his heart is beating rapidly because for once in his life he has found that something he likes is cool. It's awesome. His home team are winning and he fully understands why.
"That was a three pointer, wasn't it!?" Jesse yells over to Josh, a little smug, because yeah, he really gets basketball now. He only read around thirty web pages to get to this point, but whatever.
"It was, and a fucking good one at that! I love you Amar'e Stoudemire!" Josh screams frantically, arms flailing.
Some guy a few rows back yells. "Hell yeah, I do too!"
"This game! This, this fucking game! Just, oh my god! We're up by twelve points, we're going to win I can feel it!"
The whistle is blown for half time, and Josh flops back down into his red plastic seat, running his hands through his hair. He's quiet for all of two seconds before he jumps up and says, "I need nachos, be right back. You guys want anything?"
"No, no we're fine, Honey," Emma says, voice raspier than usual from all the cheering she's been doing, and her lips are blue from the ridiculously large slushy she's been sipping on throughout the game. She smiles at Jesse, shoving him gently. "How great is this!?"
"It's amazing," Jesse cries, removing his foam finger. "This was such a good idea. I wish the others could have come, too."
"Like Andrew?" Emma grins as if she knows something that Jesse doesn't.
Jesse decides to play dumb, and looks away, at the aisle between seats, at the people leaving to go to the bathroom during half time, at the people who don't have impossibly intuitive red-headed friends. "Yeah, I guess Andrew."
"I know you like him." Without even having to look at her, Jesse can hear the smile in Emma's voice, and tries his hardest to keep himself from blushing, which is pretty much impossible. She giggles. "Don't even bother trying to deny it, I'm a girl, Jesse. I've spent the entirety of my adolescence obsessed with boys, I know how they work, even the gay ones. You like him, you really do. You want to have spindly-legged, curly-haired, Anglo-American babies with him."
"That's a biological impossibility," Jesse states simply.
He feels a hand on his chin, and Emma twists his face so that he has to look at her. "Stop avoiding the subject. Admit it."
Jesse looks down, there is it, that bubbly feeling in his chest, the nerves. It's only Emma, but saying aloud will make it true. No longer will it be this crazy, impossible notion in his head. The first step is admitting it, that's how you get over something, right? But, Jesse doesn't want to get over Andrew, this isn't an AA meeting, Andrew-aholics Anonymous, Jesse will think of a snappier name later.
Hi, I'm Jesse Eisenberg, and I have a full-blown, heart-wrenching, I-want-him-so-effing-bad, crush on Andrew Garfield.
"You're too smart for your own good, you know," Jesse says -so quietly that Emma has to lean in to hear him over the crowd- it's a way of admitting to it without really saying it. He likes that.
"I knew it," She grins, leaping onto him, pulling him into a hug. "Can you please be boyfriends now?"
Jesse's choking a little bit, Emma has her arms wrapped tight around his neck. "I'm working on it, but, one small problem. Andrew's straight as far as I'm aware."
Emma leans back, smiling sympathetically. "Oh sweetie. Andrew isn't straight. He's bi... well, um, bi-curious, I guess. He didn't fully realise that he was attracted to boys until about a year ago, just after he moved here. I'm the only one who knows, so..."
Okay, what? Jesse feels as though he's going to throw up, his stomach is clenching, he just manages to choke out two words. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, Honey, how could you not see it?"
"I could sort of see it, I always figured that he was a little bit... you know? But it's not that." Jesse's eyes widen with realisation, he feels as though he's going cry as the penny drops, as the light-bulb above his head switches on. His voice is thick. "This is what that was about, isn't it? When we first met, and you said that there was another reason why you were happy about me being gay. Oh my god, you, you... you want me to be his experiment, don't you? He's bi-curious, but you figured that you'd need to find a willing gay guy, so he'd could test out that curiosity, just to make sure. That's what I am, aren't I?"
Emma looks down. "Well..."
"Oh my god!" Jesse turns away from her, and that's it, he's crying. Hunched over his knees, not sure what to do as his heart splits down the middle, right in two, because for the last three months he's just been a pawn in Emma's little plan. "That's... that's why he didn't want me to change, isn't it? He wanted me to stay all naive and innocent like this so I wouldn't catch on to what he was doing, so that I'd be willing to do whatever he wants because I'd think that he..." Jesse sniffs hard "...really liked me."
Emma goes to put an arm around him, but he shrugs it off, and she looks so hurt.
"It's not like that any more though, Andrew had nothing to do with this, I didn't mention it to him, it was my idea," she says quietly, somehow, Jesse can still hear her over the raucous cheering of the crowd as the half-time cheerleaders come out. "Jesse, you're not an experiment, you were going to be for maybe a day, but you're too good for that, way too fucking good. He genuinely feels something for you, I can see it whenever you're together. He really likes you, so, so much. Please, I'm sorry. Besides, he didn't want you to change because he wanted to be stay all naive and stuff, he didn't want you to change because, believe it or fucking not, he adores you just the way that you are, and if you ever doubted that, I'd bet any money that he'd start singing that Bruno Mars song to you!"
"I still don't believe you," Jesse replies, wiping at his face. "People never like me like that, I figured that Andrew was just like this with everybody. I, I thought he was just one of those guys, you know? The one's that can get close to another person without having to over-analyse everything, born with impeccable social skills and a gravitational pull that draws lowly, lesser planets like myself, towards them."
"If anything, you're pulling him towards you," Emma replies softly, looking out across the court with rueful, tear filled eyes. The way she says it -her voice cracking in the middle- Jesse knows that she means it. She's sorry.
They're the only two people in the entire place that aren't making any sound.
Jesse's experiencing that feeling you get when you're going up the first steep slope on a roller-coaster, when you start to worry that maybe this was a bad idea. Knowing Andrew is like being on a roller-coaster. At first you're weary about it, like 'If I get too close to that I could end up with an injury', but as soon as it's over, you're thinking 'Again! Again! Again! I wanna go again!' With Andrew Garfield, Jesse has no idea what's coming next, but that's okay. Andrew is a harmless legal high, and Jesse is addicted.
Jesse continues on, out of nowhere. "Andrew's so good with you know, touching and closeness and other people in general. I figured that it was just something they taught the kids in England. He didn't know that Gibraltar is a real place, but he can put his arm around you so damn casually that you start to think 'Is this just a bro thing, or a protective paternal thing, or his way of saying 'I secretly like you, short, awkward boy'?"
"Well, I think that he secretly likes you, short, awkward -but very cute- boy," Emma turns, smiling a little. Jesse smiles back, not showing his teeth. "You want an example of Andrew's protective behaviour, then just take a look at how he is with Justin. He's stuck up for him for over a year, turned guerrilla candy thief for him, but that's it. You're different."
Jesse shakes his head. "Wow."
"People really like you, Jesse. I like you, Justin does, Armie and Josh do, before you came here Joe didn't shut up about you, and Andrew? He pretty much worships the ground you walk on. Don't you remember what happened on the movie night? Don't you remember him tickling you and hugging you and playing with your hair? Guys don't do that to other guys if they're relationship is platonic, they just don't."
Another endless moment of silence stretches out before them, the cheerleaders are asking the crowd to give them a K, but Emma and Jesse do not respond. Jesse sits up, chuckling to himself a little, and turns to Emma.
"Where did you learn all of this, about guys and stuff?" He asks.
Emma shrugs. "Online mostly, all those body language sites, you know."
Jesse chuckles below breath, elbows still on his knees when Josh returns.
He's carrying three large slushies and a box of nachos. "I know you guys didn't want anything bu-" he notes Jesse's red, puffy eyes, and frowns. "What did I miss?"
Jesse and Emma speak simultaneously, shaking their heads. "Nothing."
***
"Dude, you should totally get this one!"
Currently, Jesse is with Justin, shopping in a high-end mens clothing store that's blasting Ice Cube's Check Yourself at a volume way too high for Jesse's sensitive ears. This is the seventh store they've been to today and it seems to be Justin's favourite of the lot.
All of the furniture in this place is chrome, stainless steel, leather. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, are all bright white, it's like being on the inside of a spaceship, it's totally unnatural and too clean. Jesse is over by the jeans, because, well, they're safe. He knows where he is with jeans. Justin is on the other side of the store, holding up a weird looking jacket, he dances over to Jesse with it, bobbing his head along to the beat of the blaring rap song.
He holds the ridiculous jacket up to Jesse's chest, eyeing it appreciatively, voice soft. "Yeah, you should definitely buy this."
Jesse looks down at it, "I don't think so, and what's going on with the shoulders?"
"They're epaulettes," Justin replies with evident disbelief at Jesse's sheer ignorance when it comes to fashion.
"No, they're feathers. I'd look like Brandon Flowers if I wore this."
"Is that really such a bad thing? You've got the shoulders for it. Besides," Justin shakes his head, eyes wide, "you know who Brandon Flowers is?"
Jesse nods, "Joe's really into The Killers, and this jacket looks just like the one that Brandon wore in the video for that song, you know," Jesse begins to sing quietly, looking around in case anyone may be watching, "Are we human? Or are we dancer?"
"The lyric is 'Or are we denser?'"
"Oh, okay, yeah, that makes a lot more sense, but whatever, I'm not wearing that. Can't I, I don't know, just get these?" He points to a pair of blue jeans that are priced twenty dollars higher than any normal pair because someone's gone to the trouble of making them look worn in.
"No. They're exactly the same as the pair that you're wearing right now, we're getting you something different. Come on," Justin hangs the jacket up on a nearby rack, grabs Jesse's wrist, and drags him through the store, lecturing him over the music.
Jesse's worried that people are looking, but believe it or not, nobody is. Maybe this is considered normal here, a crazy guy in a suede fedora dragging a clueless teen around, yelling about different shade's of blue. Some are flattering apparently, but it depends on your skin tone, a blue too dark could make you look pale. Jesse's waiting for that Third Eye Blind song, Semi-Charmed Life, to start playing, and for the video montage to begin, in which he steps out of a changing room wearing lots of different outfits, and Justin gives him the thumbs up or thumbs down on them, smiling or frowning.
Justin stops abruptly in the dress-shirt aisle, Jesse's stumbles into his back.
"That one!" He points at a simple, cornflower blue button down, with tiny black buttons that could easily be hidden by a tie. Justin's clearly got the same idea. "I'm thinking that if we get you a black tie, a black suit-jacket, black pants, and a good pair of shoes, this'll look pretty damn good. I don't want Andrew to get pissy at me for changing you too much, so I think we'll be safe with this. What size are you?" Justin asks.
Jesse doesn't get a chance to answer, because Justin has a good eye for these things, he searches through the rack, and a shirt is in Jesse's arms, the right size too. A few aisles down, and a pair of slim-fit black pants are added to the pile. Fabric in various different forms is thrown into Jesse's arms t-shirts, hats, underwear, and Justin finally gives in and let's Jesse pick out a new pair of jeans. Justin's throwing out slang words all over the place.
"Oh man, this shirt would look sick on you, we're getting that!" It's a white screen printed V-neck with a picture of a lion on it, mid-roar. It's got silver sequins on it too, and glitter. Does Justin seriously think that Andrew would be okay with that? It's pretty douchey, so Jesse's not going to wear it, because Andrew would probably tear Justin a new one if he did, and Jesse likes Justin so he's not going to let that happen.
The pile of clothing is getting higher, until it reaches the point when Jesse can't see Justin any more. Jesse thinks that he may have lost his personal shopper somewhere in this cavernous store, with aisles like a labyrinth.
"Justin!" He calls, face hidden behind shirts, trying his best to speak over the music. "Timberlake! Where are you?" He growls. "Justin!"
"Here I am!" He appears behind Jesse, making the latter jump so that the clothes end up all over the floor. "Seriously dude, check out these cuff-links! They're little snake heads!"
Jesse says no to those as he picks the clothes up, because, according to Joe, Jesse is a Ravenclaw, and those cuff-links are way too Slytherin. If he were to wear them, he'd get the whole "House Pride" lecture from his room mate and Jesse just cannot be dealing with that again, because the last time that happened, Joe got him in a head lock and attempted to write 'wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure' across his face.
Jesse's a little worried though, about how he's going to be able to afford all of this, the guys did pitch in twenty dollars each but that's only one hundred and twenty altogether, but once he and Justin reach the checkout, Justin just whips out a platinum bank card and says that he's "got this." Jesse tries to protest but Justin waves him off.
The pair leave with about nine bags to add to the other five already packed into Justin's Range Rover. The pair work as a team to get it all into Justin's car, which isn't much of a task when you consider how big that car actually is. All the way back to school, Justin just cannot stop talking, about how Armie's stolen his prefect badge and won't give it back - "But it doesn't matter, I can get a new one pretty easily."- and a load of other things that Jesse really isn't interested in.
Jesse? Well, he can't stop thinking about Andrew, how he's going to react to all of this. What's he going to say when he sees Jesse in all of this stuff? Will he like it? Hate it? Will he yell and make another speech about how he likes Jesse just the way he is? Jesse hates to admit it, but kind of hopes so.
***
Jesse's never been to Justin and Andrew's dorm before, but yeah, it's no different to his and Joe's, Josh's and Armie's, except for the white boards. There's so many of them, resting on stands about the room, covered in equations written in Andrew's swirly hand-writing.
"For his advanced calculus class," Justin explains, moving around them with ease, Jesse knocks a couple over, and struggles to get them standing again. Justin points to another at the back of the room with a line graph on it. "Except that one, I think that's for economics."
Jesse dumps his bags onto Justin's bed, and asks, "Why does he do this?"
"That's just the way he learns. If Andrew really wants to understand something, then he'll surround himself in it."
On the right hand side of the room -in the exact same spot that Jesse's bed is placed in his and Joe's dorm- is Andrew's. His tartan covers are all in a pile at the foot, pillows concave in the middle, dented by Andrew's pretty head, all heavy with numbers. Jesse spots something white sticking out beneath one of Andrew's cushions, and tugs on it.
It's his book, Jesse's book, On The Road, and there's a book mark in it a few pages from the back. He really did read it. Jesse's chest goes tight beneath his hoodie and for some reason tears a threatening to make themselves known, because, this person gives a shit, like really gives a shit about Jesse. Andrew read his favourite book. He's not an experiment. No one would do this for someone they were experimenting with.
The tops of pink, green and orange post-its appear throughout the rest of the pages. Jesse chooses one at random, part two, chapter four. In Andrew's delicate script:
"I want to be like him. He's never hung-up, he goes every direction, he lets it all out, he knows time, he has nothing to do but rock back and forth. Man, he's the end! You see, if you go like him all the time you'll finally get it."
Beneath the quote, Andrew has written one solitary word: 'Jesse'.
What? It's been taken completely out of context, but regardless, if anything that quote would describe Andrew, the way that Jesse sees Andrew, not Jesse himself. This is so backwards but in the most wonderful of ways, Jesse feels golden. He roots through his jeans pockets, and produces a pen. Beneath Andrew's brief transcription, Jesse writes: "Is that really how you see me?"
"Hey, is that any good?" Justin appears at Jesse's shoulder.
Jesse closes the book quickly. "What, this? Yeah, it's brilliant."
"I thought as much," Jesse can hear Justin step back over to his side of the room, ruffling through shopping bags. "He's read it four times already."
Jesse gets a little choked up as he smiles, one side of his mouth curling up at the corner. "Four times," he whispers incredulously, and lifts Andrew's pillows to the put the book back.
"Here, you should put these on, I want to see how they look on you," Justin holds out the blue shirt and black pants from before. Jesse takes the clothes, and Justin makes a show of turning his back on him. "I won't look, I promise."
So, Jesse dresses, and that shirt? Wow, surprisingly soft. As he slips the pants on, he realises that they're no where near as uncomfortable as they had looked in the store. They're fitted, but not tight, something Andrew would wear. Jesse feels like Andrew, confident, sexy, like he can do anything.
He lets Justin know that he's done, and the Head Prefect turns back around. "Shit! Check you out!"
"How do I look?" Jesse smiles sheepishly, looking down. It's a pretty stupid question, because Jesse knows that he looks good without having to be told. He marvels at this, at the effect a new set of clothes can have on a person. He understands Justin now, he looks good all the time, so he feels good all the time. The guy hasn't got a bad bone in his body, he never stops smiling. He doesn't give a shit about what Armie and Josh have to say behind his back, because in his heart of hearts, Justin knows that he's a pretty decent guy.
And for once, Jesse feels the same.
"Does it look okay? Come here, let me get the rest of this on you!" Justin pulls Jesse forward, ties his tie, helps him get his jacket on, dusts off his shoulders, and tells him to get his new shoes on. Jesse does just that. Justin looks him over, a hand to his mouth, deep in thought. "This... this ensemble, needs something more... I know!"
With unprecedented agility, Justin moves over to his dresser, the top of which is littered with self-care products. Stuff to make his hair look great, to make him smell delicious, to make his skin silky smooth. He grabs a pot of hair gel, dunks his hand into it, and moves towards Jesse in an oddly threatening way, eyes gleaming, like a creepy, slimy creature from the deep.
"What are you doing?" Jesse asks, backing away. "You're not using that stuff on me."
"Trust me, Jesse. I know how to style curly hair, if you don't like it, you can wash it out."
Jesse eyes Justin's hand for a moment, dripping with pale blue goo. Justin's hair does look pretty good, Jesse won't lie. Neat and tidy, perfect corkscrew curls -unlike Jesse's, all unpredictable and uncontrollable, but Andrew likes it that way. Though, Andrew may like it better this way, the way that Justin wants it. Jesse decides that it's worth a shot, right? It's just hair after all, what's the big deal? He steps forward, sighing. "Just do it."
Justin's smile could split his face, he rubs his hands together. "Yes!"
And then a pair of warm hands, coated in cold gel, are on Jesse's head. Gentle but forceful all at the same time, manipulating his curls, taming them. Jesse cannot see what's going on up there on his scalp, but Justin's got his bottom lip sucked into his mouth with concentration, and Jesse can actually feel it as thick strands of his hair go limp, fall into place, slightly damp against his forehead. It feels weird, having another person's hands in his hair, but he doesn't have to endure it for long, as Justin is done within a minute or so.
He pauses momentarily, taking his hands back, then reaches out to tug on one particular section of Jesse's hair, and apparently, he's done. "Perfect. I am a genius!"
Justin whips out a mirror from under his bed, and holds it up to Jesse's face, grinning with triumph.
No. No. Jesse shakes his head. No. That can't be him in that reflection, all big blue eyes -enhanced even further by that shirt- chiseled jaw, broad shoulders. No. He reaches up, touches his hair, it doesn't spring up or bounce back, it's behaving for once. "No fucking way. There's, there is hope for everybody." He smiles incredulously, his teeth seem even whiter than usual, contrasting with all that black.
"Come on, this guy," Justin gestures to Jesse's reflection, then to the man himself, "has always been in there, underneath all those over-sized hoodies and worn out jeans. Everyone has potential. You were a diamond anyway, and now? You're a super-duper shiny diamond."
Jesse's finding it difficult to decide, what must he have done in a past life to deserve a group of friends as wonderful as these? That guy in the mirror, the suited and booted guy -with hair all ripply and wet looking like ocean waves- may not be the guy he wants to spend the rest of his life as, but that doesn't matter for now. The compliments from Justin, the fact that Joe never shut up about him before he came here, the speech from Emma at the basketball game, the quote that Andrew took from his favourite book to describe Jesse specifically, and the new look, however temporary, have given Jesse a little ego boost. He feels like he's worth something now, like maybe, he's actually got a chance.
Jesse has his back to it, but he hears the dorm room door open, and stiffens.
It's Andrew, his voice a mixture of tiredness and relief, he's probably just completed a monstrous piece of homework. "Hey Justin, I was down at the library using the computers, so got those biology books for you. Have you been out with Jesse ye- Oh hi! Who's this?"
Justin grins down at Jesse. "He's talking to you, man."
Jesse gulps, here it is. He turns around slowly. "Hey."
Prior to this point, Jesse has always figured that double-takes were the sort of things that happened only in movies, but that's not true at all. Andrew goes to say 'Hi' again, all casual, clearly thinking that Jesse is somebody else, but then realisation dawns upon him within a split second, to the point where the simple word 'Hi' comes out like "H-uhh!" His mouth slack like a goldfish, and his eyes are wide, living up to Jesse's own interpretation of the nickname, Bambi.
"Jesse," Andrew chokes out, cheeks flushing, eyes darting all over the room, from Jesse's face, down to his feet and back up again. "Jesse, wh... what happened? Wow."
"I happened!" Justin cries gleefully.
Jesse sees Andrew's Adam's-apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallows, he looks torn. "You look different... really nice," Andrew breathes.
"Thank you," Jesse replies quietly.
"Oh God, this is awkward!" Justin yells, throwing his arms up. He pushes Jesse forward, but his words are aimed at Andrew. "You can do better than nice, come on! Tell him how sexy he looks."
"Justin!" Jesse cries, turning around. Sure, Jesse would love to hear Andrew tell him that he's sexy, but he'd rather he wasn't pushed into it.
"What? It's true, I'm as straight as they come, but I know a good looking guy when I see-"
"You look really sexy."
Justin's head flies up, Jesse spins round, and Andrew's beet red, hands stuffed into the pockets of his chino's, eyes averted. Okay, so this is definitely a dream, Jesse has decided. He's never looked this good before, he's never been referred to as 'sexy' before, so this has got to be a dream. Yes. He refuses to believe what Andrew has just said, because he didn't actually see him say it. Jesse's hearing voices, he infers. He's going crazy.
Andrew's tugging on the strap of his messenger bag now, as if he's trying to break it, and suddenly the floor is the most interesting thing in the world to him. Jesse cannot see his face, but he knows Andrew is speaking, because the the hollows of his cheeks deepen as he opens his mouth to form the words. "You... you look gorgeous," he says. "That outfit really suits you."
"And to think, you were against this whole thing," Jesse can hear the smile in Justin's voice, he's resisting the urge to turn around and tell him to get out, but this is his dorm, so Jesse couldn't really do that.
"This, this is great, sure. But, I still prefer you the way you were before, Jesse. You've always looked good." Andrew smiles to himself, "even in your little Pacman t-shirts and rainbow coloured sneakers. I told you the first time we met, remember? You're perfection in a Gap sweatshirt. I meant that in every sense of the word." Andrews slows down, and his voice goes soft. "You've always been gorgeous."
And Jesse could just faint right there, he really could.
Emma was right, Emma was fucking right. Damn her. Jesse can't even be a little bit mad at her any more.
No guy, Jesse is pretty sure of it now, would tell another guy -very seriously- that he looks gorgeous, if he didn't at least like him a little bit. Sure, super macho jock guys may slap each other's ass from time to time, and call each other 'sexy motherfuckers' when they're drunk or after they score in a game or something, but it's not serious. This is. No guy goes all red like he's just been caught doing something bad, no guy stumbles over his words and averts his eyes like Andrew did. He means it, and because he meant it, Jesse knows it's true.
"Oh, I... I made this for you," Andrew says after God knows how long spent in silence. He rummages around in his bag and produces a CD, he holds it out to Jesse. "It's your mix CD."
As Jesse takes it, Andrew looks up, cheeks all pink and blotchy from his earlier embarrassment, smiling just a little bit as if to say, You get it now?
Slipped into the front of the jewel case is a piece of paper, on which Andrew has written the song titles. The CD is entitled, For Jesse.
For Jesse. No one else. Andrew didn't make it for any body else, it could never be given to anyone else. It's for Jesse. He never heard of any of them -well no, he's heard of one- but already, he knows that they're going to be some of his favourite songs.
"Sal Paradise? Just like the guy from On The Road."
"Yeah," Andrew grins sheepishly. "I always liked that track, but thanks to you, I really get it now. The whole song is based on that book, and the CD? It's... it's based on you."
Jesse's heart is in his throat and his lungs are inexplicably devoid of air. He coughs, choking over his shock as he grins.
The corners of his mouth are in fact dying to stretch up to his ears, he's smiling that hard. He's fighting it, and it's making his cheeks hurt, but he doesn't want to look like a goofy idiot after all this work Justin's put in. His hands are shaking and his belly aches for no real reason and his heart is ready to jump out of his chest. Jesse wants to scream with joy, he wants to cry, he wants to burst into song. This is no fucking dream, because no dream is this good.
~
A/N: To see the tracklisting of Andrew's playlist, go HERE.
A/N 2: The lovely outfit that Justin got for Jesse is based on THIS BAD-BOY.
Part Four