The moment Drake placed his hands on Conner’s thighs, it was very nearly game over. The same way it was when Conner’s thumb clumsily slipped on his controller and left Hope cheering in victory when she whooped his ass in Mario Kart. Just one simple move that made him lose all composure.
He stared down at Drake’s fingers, long and delicate looking, made for holding cameras and tracing over tattoo designs. They were nothing like Conner’s, which were bony, on the wrong side of too boyish, and covered in cuts and calluses. He couldn’t picture Claudia’s hands in his mind right now, but imagined them to be way softer. Better for Drake’s to hold onto.
Slowly, he lifted a hand of his own. Maybe his touch would be unwelcome, but he wanted to let himself be selfish right now. With shaking fingers, he let his hand rest over Drake’s curling it so he could hold on tightly.
Something in his chest settled for a moment, before being rocked to the side by Drake’s words.
“Wait, what?” Conner blinked, dumbstruck. “Claudia said what?”
Claudia had told Drake that Conner would root for them, that he would want Drake to be happy. It might have sounded like a very positive character assessment from Claudia, but it didn’t take into account that Claudia knew Conner just as well as Drake did. In some aspects, she even knew him better. The thing was, Claudia knew that Conner could be petty and selfish and she’d encouraged these traits when it suited her. She would have known that there was no way Conner would have rooted for something that didn’t serve his own best interests. And she knew how Conner felt about Drake.
Immediately, Conner tugged his hand back as his mouth fell open. He stared at Drake in astonishment, trying to process what he was hearing.
Maybe in his mind he’d been trying to grant both of them some sort of clemency. Maybe they had missed him so much, the two of them had just needed to fuck the sadness out of each other. As uncharitable as that sounded, it was actually Conner’s most generous opinion of the situation.
He hadn’t expected to hear that Claudia had pushed for it. Had warped Drake’s memory of Conner and shaped him into some gracious, selfless individual that wouldn’t give a rat’s ass that his best friend who he was in love with had fallen into bed with his other friend.
“Why would she say that?” His voice sounded bleak, he knew that.
In a weird way, you kinda brought us together.
That had to be the final straw. The walls of his apartment were slowly closing in on him and suddenly, Conner was on his feet with such a speed that even Ziggy perked his head up in worry. The dog’s eyes were alert and trained on Conner as he stalked across the living room. To the other side, far away from Drake.
“Whoop-de-fucking-do for you guys,” he muttered under his breath. He let out a ragged sigh and reached up, tugging on his hair.
There was too much forced cheer in his voice, the words sounding all too bitter as he finally looked at Drake over his shoulder and declared, “Well! Real glad I was able to do that for you guys. Maybe the next time I’ll fuck off it’ll give you a wedding or something.”
Before he knew it, his hand was clenched into a fist. He looked down at it, and knew that any second now, it could go careening right into the wall if he didn’t cool it. His drumkit was in his room, too far away to be an outlet right now. Instead, he threw his head back and, instead of punching the wall, opted to slam the flat of his hand on the doorframe that led towards the kitchen instead.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s just something I have to get used to,” he said, teeth gritted. “Can we please order food now?”
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