TWTMC -- An Antoine-centric drabble
oh God, I actually finished a piece! and it actually felt finished!
He’s jealous, he realizes after a certain point. He wants to feel guilty - hell, he does feel guilty, but then he tells himself (in his most perfect, polished French), “Life’s a game, and if I have to cheat to win, I will.” But then, sometimes Antoine looks at Luke and sees someone guileless, someone… not innocent (because that would be a cliché, and that word wouldn’t quite fit), but someone who tries his best to trust, to be open, to be honest with both himself and the world in a place where lies grow on trees like money doesn’t.
But the fact that he’s Luke’s friend (best friend, the back-left lobe of his brain whispers traitorously) doesn’t change the fact that he’s not jealous and that he wants.
More specifically, he wants Markus Dray.
Latching onto that want makes it easier to forget that Luke’s eyes follow his Prince Charming’s figure down the halls like the moon chases the stars across the sky at night. Focusing on his want makes it easier to shrug off Luke’s confided secrets, the ones that he murmurs sotto voce to him between Chemistry and History. Antoine slides into a façade of bored nonchalance as easily as he does into his favorite black cashmere sweater.
And almost more easily is slipping in French, changing his verbs around when he speaks to Markus (“There are two verbs for the word ‘to know,’ he remarks. Markus looks, for the most part, unimpressed. “Of course,” Antoine continues, “there is to know someone, and then there is to know someone.” A suggestive smirk was thrown in Markus’ general direction.), an occasional - unnecessary - brush of fingertips when comparing notes, a stolen moment (or three) in the school’s antique elevator, using only the most familiar forms of address when discussing a topic (and urging the other boy to do the same). For the most part, Markus remains unfailingly - frustratingly - polite. Distant, even in his words… But even the Silver Prince is human. He slips, occasionally. Antoine savors those moments (besides, he reminds himself, a good chase isn’t good unless someone puts up a fight. Surrender is that much sweeter).
“Bonjour, mon cher…” He says this every day as he slips into French class. Antoine knows that Markus will ignore the use of his endearment, but, well, persistence had a tendency to be somehow beneficial.
By the time his lunch period swings by, Antoine debates his choices: he could listen with one ear as Luke spills the contents of his heart in that subtle way of his, he could follow Markus to one of his many haunts, or he could find a way to watch both from a distance (the two peers with the most relevance to him tended to cross paths halfway through lunch. He would find it endearing if his jealousy didn’t want to find a way to end the occurrence). But, as Luke comes jogging down the hall in his direction, Antoine’s choice is made for him. Quietly, he sighed - it was going to be a long forty-five minutes.
*
“He has heterochromia, did you notice?” Luke asks. He placed very little inflection to his voice, but Antoine could see that the boy was an infatuated fool, more or less. He hmmmm-ed noncommittally in response, leaning his chin on the heel of his hand as he sifted through a sea of sounds and faces.
“It would be rather hard not to, wouldn’t it?” Antoine almost smirked as Luke pulled a face at his perfectly bored tone, but it was a near thing. He knew full well that the French accent didn’t help to mollify the snobby tone one bit.
“Surprisingly,” Luke continued, “No. It took some of the freshmen and even some of the art teachers until second quarter to notice…”
“And here I thought that artists were supposed to be observant,” Antoine said.
“They are,” Luke replied. “But it’s a subtle thing, I suppose. It’s not like the teachers or the freshmen spend a whole lot of time looking at us square in the face. And his hair has the tendency to fall into his eyes.”
“I know,” Antoine said irritably. “I do share a class with your dear Prince Charming.” Unbidden, a scathing note crept into Antoine’s voice. His lip curled in a slight scowl (he’s seen it in the mirror before, many times, and he knows he can still pull off a scowl and not look ugly. He knows this in part because he’s vain). A frustrated sound escaped Luke.
“God, Antoine, what’s been your problem lately? I don’t get it. I’m not asking that we kiss and make up like fucking girls, but seriously. You PMS like you have two X chromosomes. If you want me to shut up about Dray, fine, tell me, but you’re the one who told me to ‘go for it’ in the first place. God.” Antoine wanted to laugh at Luke’s frustration, but he was enough of a bastard as it was, so he let it be.
Mostly.
“I am bisexual, not a fucking girl. Stop making girl jokes on the basis of my sexuality, you Godforsaken-“
“I am not discriminating against your sexuality. But for Christ’s sake, you’re acting like a girl. I don’t know what your problem is, so either you open your damn mouth and tell me, or tell me to get the fuck away so you can have space for your bitching. Take your pick, we can sort this out now or tomorrow.” Luke’s hands scraped across his eyes in an expression of agitation.
“Fine. Fine, then, Luke.” From across the table, Luke noted that Antoine’s eyes looked like stones in his anger. “Have it your way, or whatever the hell you want. Merde. I’m not dealing with this… you…” Antoine cursed again as his fingers caught on a tangled snag of his tight, brown-blonde curls. “I will see you tomorrow.” Antoine slid from the table. Tracking his eyes on his friend, Luke watched Antoine leave until he was but a dark brown smudge through watery window panes.
*
Jealous. He was jealous. And not just because he wanted a certain senior - Antoine realized this with a jolt as he walked home (and the realization stung; it was hard to ignore).
*
He stayed away from the boy that had become his best friend for something like a solid week, and as he did so, he realized many things.
He realized that Markus Dray’s mismatched eyes really were subtle, and not just in color. They were one of the few pairs of eyes that Antoine had trouble decoding. Markus’ French was actually quite good, he just didn’t do colloquial, familiar speech very well, and felt safer in the formal. He spoke it almost naturally.
He realized that Markus’ lips were not entirely as soft as they looked - but that was perhaps because of the fact that their first kiss was something contrived half in jealousy and half in desperation.
The Silver Prince was not quite as fearless as everyone thought he was.
Sure, he could stand up to a stupid jock with a switchblade and not flinch, he could brave public speaking and mangle a line of a speech and still carry it off with aplomb and he didn’t bat an eyelash when batty old priests shrieked at him with their narrow minded ideas of what art was, but Markus Dray could not face himself quite as easily as anything else.
“You’re… you’re bisexual?” He asked. Antoine almost chuckled, but he felt that doing so might be a tad cruel.
“Depending on the time of day, the French go either way…” he sang. A look crossed Markus’ face, something between bewilderment and aborted laughter.
“You know that play?” He asked.
“Hmm, well, yes. While my sister was visiting for the holidays, she saw it on MTV and taped it for me. I only watch it for that sequence, honestly. The song never fails to make me laugh.” Silence fell between them again. Conversation has effectively fallen out, change the subject… while Antoine was racking his head for ideas, Markus spoke up, softly.
“I… I can… relate to the song, however ridiculous - I…” Antoine waited patiently, having never seen this side of St. Michael’s Silver Prince. It was as if Markus were a different person - where did his quick grin, his enigmatic charisma, his charm and silver tongue go? Where were the smooth, gilt words, the sangfroid that made him win so many to his favor? Where was the Prince Charming that no one could attain?
The captain of the swim team bit his lip, a fish out of water, a dolphin beached on an unexpectedly shallow coastline.
“I like… other guys… but just… yeah,” he finished awkwardly. Then, as if the Fates had suddenly swept in for the sole purpose of startling them, a shrill bell cut the air, signaling a fire drill.
*
Another week went by, and Antoine’s feelings were still unsorted. He wanted to run to Luke and apologize. He wanted to act on his jealousy… He wanted to turn back time and go back to when he just thought chasing Markus Dray was a game, not an actual need.
He didn’t know exactly how to place his feelings on the artistic boy - on the one hand, stealing occasional kisses in the antique elevator were fun; they satisfied a petty part of himself. On the other, he knew he wasn’t in love with Markus the way Luke was, but leaving him would still be… considerably painful. He didn’t want to label what they were. He wanted to keep Markus to himself, even if he knew he couldn’t.
Most importantly, he wanted Markus to realize that he didn’t have to hold a dual theory about himself - he wanted Markus to realize that liking other guys was not a crime, that that particular part of him wasn’t ‘another Markus’ or anything ridiculous like that. Shit happens (except he wanted to say it more eloquently than that).
“Mon cher…” Markus seemed to be more accepting of the endearment these days. “It is no crime to love whomever you love. Love is love. Attraction is attraction.” Antoine leaned into Markus, pushing the taller boy into the wall of the old elevator. Just as the hand on the dial ticked down towards the floor holding Antoine’s Chemistry class with Luke, Antoine slipped forward and stole a kiss from nervous lips. The doors slid open, and by the time the bell chimed the floor, Antoine had slipped away, gone, as if he were never there.
Markus touched his lips as he left the elevator. He spent the majority of his English class sketching Luke, torn between staying with what he knew (Antoine), and wondering what Luke’s skin would taste like, pressed close…
*
Antoine watched Luke pass Markus in the hall, and finally unclouded his eyes long enough to see the stars in both their eyes (they were amusingly oblivious to each other). Jealousy burned a line down his throat and into his chest (green and scorching, just like absinthe).
He wanted what he knew Luke and Markus could have together.
*
Somewhere along the way, Antoine realized that lunch without Luke was something like torture.
That his pride was his own enemy, and it stopped him from talking to his best friend in Chemistry, kept him off their mock basketball teams in gym, made him look the other way in English when every syllable in Luke’s voice seemed to scream at him, “What the hell are you doing, you idiot?!”
Much as he liked Markus, Markus didn’t fill in the blanks that silences left the way Luke did. Markus didn’t read his mind or ‘share brainwaves in order to go green,’ Markus didn’t answer a question in Spanish when he asked it in French. Markus didn’t argue about the arrogance of the French with him, didn’t make girly jokes in response to his bisexuality.
Markus didn’t let him be a total bitch because Antoine didn’t want to hurt Markus (Markus didn’t quite understand that his humor was weird and hurtful and couldn’t be taken at face value).
“Je suis tel un imbécile...”
*
The next day, he went back to Luke.
“Je suis désolé,” he said as he stood behind Luke’s chair. I’m sorry. Luke barely moved as Antoine squeezed into the chair next to his. The fringe of his bangs covered his eyes (Luke really needed to cut his hair), but there was the slightest smile on his face.
“De nada.” It’s nothing. Between the Romance Languages, romance in of itself and jealousy, they understood each other.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, he would go back to Markus. Back to their little secret ‘trysts’ in the antique elevator. He was still jealous. He still wanted.
But for now, Antoine knows what he has.
He has a friend (a proper ‘best friend,’ this time, not someone he just uses for the hell of it). He has Luke, who makes bad jokes and never puts up with too much of his bullshit, who lets him be a diva when he wants to be (because he knows he can be), who understands his French and is a lovesick fool.
And really, Luke is not the only fool in this crazy business the rest of the world calls living.
He’s jealous, he realizes after a certain point. He wants to feel guilty - hell, he does feel guilty, but then he tells himself (in his most perfect, polished French), “Life’s a game, and if I have to cheat to win, I will.” But then, sometimes Antoine looks at Luke and sees someone guileless, someone… not innocent (because that would be a cliché, and that word wouldn’t quite fit), but someone who tries his best to trust, to be open, to be honest with both himself and the world in a place where lies grow on trees like money doesn’t.
But the fact that he’s Luke’s friend (best friend, the back-left lobe of his brain whispers traitorously) doesn’t change the fact that he’s not jealous and that he wants.
More specifically, he wants Markus Dray.
Latching onto that want makes it easier to forget that Luke’s eyes follow his Prince Charming’s figure down the halls like the moon chases the stars across the sky at night. Focusing on his want makes it easier to shrug off Luke’s confided secrets, the ones that he murmurs sotto voce to him between Chemistry and History. Antoine slides into a façade of bored nonchalance as easily as he does into his favorite black cashmere sweater.
And almost more easily is slipping in French, changing his verbs around when he speaks to Markus (“There are two verbs for the word ‘to know,’ he remarks. Markus looks, for the most part, unimpressed. “Of course,” Antoine continues, “there is to know someone, and then there is to know someone.” A suggestive smirk was thrown in Markus’ general direction.), an occasional - unnecessary - brush of fingertips when comparing notes, a stolen moment (or three) in the school’s antique elevator, using only the most familiar forms of address when discussing a topic (and urging the other boy to do the same). For the most part, Markus remains unfailingly - frustratingly - polite. Distant, even in his words… But even the Silver Prince is human. He slips, occasionally. Antoine savors those moments (besides, he reminds himself, a good chase isn’t good unless someone puts up a fight. Surrender is that much sweeter).
“Bonjour, mon cher…” He says this every day as he slips into French class. Antoine knows that Markus will ignore the use of his endearment, but, well, persistence had a tendency to be somehow beneficial.
By the time his lunch period swings by, Antoine debates his choices: he could listen with one ear as Luke spills the contents of his heart in that subtle way of his, he could follow Markus to one of his many haunts, or he could find a way to watch both from a distance (the two peers with the most relevance to him tended to cross paths halfway through lunch. He would find it endearing if his jealousy didn’t want to find a way to end the occurrence). But, as Luke comes jogging down the hall in his direction, Antoine’s choice is made for him. Quietly, he sighed - it was going to be a long forty-five minutes.
*
“He has heterochromia, did you notice?” Luke asks. He placed very little inflection to his voice, but Antoine could see that the boy was an infatuated fool, more or less. He hmmmm-ed noncommittally in response, leaning his chin on the heel of his hand as he sifted through a sea of sounds and faces.
“It would be rather hard not to, wouldn’t it?” Antoine almost smirked as Luke pulled a face at his perfectly bored tone, but it was a near thing. He knew full well that the French accent didn’t help to mollify the snobby tone one bit.
“Surprisingly,” Luke continued, “No. It took some of the freshmen and even some of the art teachers until second quarter to notice…”
“And here I thought that artists were supposed to be observant,” Antoine said.
“They are,” Luke replied. “But it’s a subtle thing, I suppose. It’s not like the teachers or the freshmen spend a whole lot of time looking at us square in the face. And his hair has the tendency to fall into his eyes.”
“I know,” Antoine said irritably. “I do share a class with your dear Prince Charming.” Unbidden, a scathing note crept into Antoine’s voice. His lip curled in a slight scowl (he’s seen it in the mirror before, many times, and he knows he can still pull off a scowl and not look ugly. He knows this in part because he’s vain). A frustrated sound escaped Luke.
“God, Antoine, what’s been your problem lately? I don’t get it. I’m not asking that we kiss and make up like fucking girls, but seriously. You PMS like you have two X chromosomes. If you want me to shut up about Dray, fine, tell me, but you’re the one who told me to ‘go for it’ in the first place. God.” Antoine wanted to laugh at Luke’s frustration, but he was enough of a bastard as it was, so he let it be.
Mostly.
“I am bisexual, not a fucking girl. Stop making girl jokes on the basis of my sexuality, you Godforsaken-“
“I am not discriminating against your sexuality. But for Christ’s sake, you’re acting like a girl. I don’t know what your problem is, so either you open your damn mouth and tell me, or tell me to get the fuck away so you can have space for your bitching. Take your pick, we can sort this out now or tomorrow.” Luke’s hands scraped across his eyes in an expression of agitation.
“Fine. Fine, then, Luke.” From across the table, Luke noted that Antoine’s eyes looked like stones in his anger. “Have it your way, or whatever the hell you want. Merde. I’m not dealing with this… you…” Antoine cursed again as his fingers caught on a tangled snag of his tight, brown-blonde curls. “I will see you tomorrow.” Antoine slid from the table. Tracking his eyes on his friend, Luke watched Antoine leave until he was but a dark brown smudge through watery window panes.
*
Jealous. He was jealous. And not just because he wanted a certain senior - Antoine realized this with a jolt as he walked home (and the realization stung; it was hard to ignore).
*
He stayed away from the boy that had become his best friend for something like a solid week, and as he did so, he realized many things.
He realized that Markus Dray’s mismatched eyes really were subtle, and not just in color. They were one of the few pairs of eyes that Antoine had trouble decoding. Markus’ French was actually quite good, he just didn’t do colloquial, familiar speech very well, and felt safer in the formal. He spoke it almost naturally.
He realized that Markus’ lips were not entirely as soft as they looked - but that was perhaps because of the fact that their first kiss was something contrived half in jealousy and half in desperation.
The Silver Prince was not quite as fearless as everyone thought he was.
Sure, he could stand up to a stupid jock with a switchblade and not flinch, he could brave public speaking and mangle a line of a speech and still carry it off with aplomb and he didn’t bat an eyelash when batty old priests shrieked at him with their narrow minded ideas of what art was, but Markus Dray could not face himself quite as easily as anything else.
“You’re… you’re bisexual?” He asked. Antoine almost chuckled, but he felt that doing so might be a tad cruel.
“Depending on the time of day, the French go either way…” he sang. A look crossed Markus’ face, something between bewilderment and aborted laughter.
“You know that play?” He asked.
“Hmm, well, yes. While my sister was visiting for the holidays, she saw it on MTV and taped it for me. I only watch it for that sequence, honestly. The song never fails to make me laugh.” Silence fell between them again. Conversation has effectively fallen out, change the subject… while Antoine was racking his head for ideas, Markus spoke up, softly.
“I… I can… relate to the song, however ridiculous - I…” Antoine waited patiently, having never seen this side of St. Michael’s Silver Prince. It was as if Markus were a different person - where did his quick grin, his enigmatic charisma, his charm and silver tongue go? Where were the smooth, gilt words, the sangfroid that made him win so many to his favor? Where was the Prince Charming that no one could attain?
The captain of the swim team bit his lip, a fish out of water, a dolphin beached on an unexpectedly shallow coastline.
“I like… other guys… but just… yeah,” he finished awkwardly. Then, as if the Fates had suddenly swept in for the sole purpose of startling them, a shrill bell cut the air, signaling a fire drill.
*
Another week went by, and Antoine’s feelings were still unsorted. He wanted to run to Luke and apologize. He wanted to act on his jealousy… He wanted to turn back time and go back to when he just thought chasing Markus Dray was a game, not an actual need.
He didn’t know exactly how to place his feelings on the artistic boy - on the one hand, stealing occasional kisses in the antique elevator were fun; they satisfied a petty part of himself. On the other, he knew he wasn’t in love with Markus the way Luke was, but leaving him would still be… considerably painful. He didn’t want to label what they were. He wanted to keep Markus to himself, even if he knew he couldn’t.
Most importantly, he wanted Markus to realize that he didn’t have to hold a dual theory about himself - he wanted Markus to realize that liking other guys was not a crime, that that particular part of him wasn’t ‘another Markus’ or anything ridiculous like that. Shit happens (except he wanted to say it more eloquently than that).
“Mon cher…” Markus seemed to be more accepting of the endearment these days. “It is no crime to love whomever you love. Love is love. Attraction is attraction.” Antoine leaned into Markus, pushing the taller boy into the wall of the old elevator. Just as the hand on the dial ticked down towards the floor holding Antoine’s Chemistry class with Luke, Antoine slipped forward and stole a kiss from nervous lips. The doors slid open, and by the time the bell chimed the floor, Antoine had slipped away, gone, as if he were never there.
Markus touched his lips as he left the elevator. He spent the majority of his English class sketching Luke, torn between staying with what he knew (Antoine), and wondering what Luke’s skin would taste like, pressed close…
*
Antoine watched Luke pass Markus in the hall, and finally unclouded his eyes long enough to see the stars in both their eyes (they were amusingly oblivious to each other). Jealousy burned a line down his throat and into his chest (green and scorching, just like absinthe).
He wanted what he knew Luke and Markus could have together.
*
Somewhere along the way, Antoine realized that lunch without Luke was something like torture.
That his pride was his own enemy, and it stopped him from talking to his best friend in Chemistry, kept him off their mock basketball teams in gym, made him look the other way in English when every syllable in Luke’s voice seemed to scream at him, “What the hell are you doing, you idiot?!”
Much as he liked Markus, Markus didn’t fill in the blanks that silences left the way Luke did. Markus didn’t read his mind or ‘share brainwaves in order to go green,’ Markus didn’t answer a question in Spanish when he asked it in French. Markus didn’t argue about the arrogance of the French with him, didn’t make girly jokes in response to his bisexuality.
Markus didn’t let him be a total bitch because Antoine didn’t want to hurt Markus (Markus didn’t quite understand that his humor was weird and hurtful and couldn’t be taken at face value).
“Je suis tel un imbécile...”
*
The next day, he went back to Luke.
“Je suis désolé,” he said as he stood behind Luke’s chair. I’m sorry. Luke barely moved as Antoine squeezed into the chair next to his. The fringe of his bangs covered his eyes (Luke really needed to cut his hair), but there was the slightest smile on his face.
“De nada.” It’s nothing. Between the Romance Languages, romance in of itself and jealousy, they understood each other.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, he would go back to Markus. Back to their little secret ‘trysts’ in the antique elevator. He was still jealous. He still wanted.
But for now, Antoine knows what he has.
He has a friend (a proper ‘best friend,’ this time, not someone he just uses for the hell of it). He has Luke, who makes bad jokes and never puts up with too much of his bullshit, who lets him be a diva when he wants to be (because he knows he can be), who understands his French and is a lovesick fool.
And really, Luke is not the only fool in this crazy business the rest of the world calls living.