Yeah, I'm Jake

Hey there, my name is Jake. I'm 16 years old and I won't be born for a while. My best friend is Drew Morgan, and my grandfather also happens to be Liam Payne. 

[the-jake-payne]

So this happened.

(first off I tried really hard to make it look like a movie poster so omg)

SO. The thing is I’m not the anon who promised you a fic, I’m a completely different one :P But people are right, it’s awfully good if it’s Drake omg, so I thought maybe you’ll be happy for this one, too. So let me explain a few things first.

A/N: This is an AU-ish thingy. Drew and Jake are friends since they were kids here, too, they have the same group of friends aswell, except that I added an OC as Shay’s girlfriend because the “I’m bi” thing got me and I just played with the thought, I figured this story needed it, so I created Laura. (That’s my name btw lmao - and no, not the Laura who goes by Luke here :P) I hope you’ll like her character, too, though ^.^ (well, she’s a side character, obviously, but still) This fic also features: lifeguard!Jake (idk man, it was summer when I started this and it’s important bc of the plot :P also wanted to concentrate more on Jake’s attractiveness too, I mean I feel like we’re not talking about that enough), shut-in/unreachable! Drew is high in this one (again, I like the idea of that :P), over-excited & slightly cray Shay! (she’s goofy and Drake’s bigger fan tbh. Inspiration came when she said she was rooting them all along), Sammy is as sweet is ever, Jay certainly has the hots for Drew at some level, but instead of forcing himself on him and flirting shamelessly, he’s passive-aggressive and a total ass towards him :P, lots of humour, lots of AWKWARDNESS, slow-burn, silly boys in love, fluff fluFF FLUFFY FLUFF, totally minor smut bc I’m a christian and my mom would beat me with her bible if she saw this :P I censored a lot ok not to worry. (That doesn’t apply to language tho whoopsie - Jay loves his cursing) This one’s kind of by Drew’s point of view. alsO THIS TURNED INTO A DAMN BOOK I’M S O SORRY BC Words: 31,000+ !!! Pls forgive me omg idk how that happened.

Read this whenever you have the time (and put a read more here omg)

“I think Jake will just cause moreaccidents, honestly.”

“… How do you figure?”

“Remember that time we were at the pool and that girl turned and saw you and she was so stunned by your good looks she actually fell in-”

“Because she slipped-”

“Because she wasn’t looking where she was going. Because ofyou. And then you jumped in and saved her life and she tried to kiss you and you almost cried and it was, like, the funniest thing ever-”

“Maybe to you.”

“It wasthe funniest thing ever,” Jay interjects, as though he’s being extremely helpful. „But to be honest it might’ve also been because Drew appeared behind him.”

Drew, privately, does not agree with Jay’s assessment of the situation – he’d found the whole thing absolutely tedious.

“Either way, it was hilaious. You see, Jake? It’s been scientifically proven that classically attractive people shouldn’t be lifeguards because they’re distracting-”

“I really doubt that, somehow-”

“-And the magnitude of your attractiveness will surely kill no less than a hundred people.”

“Shay.” Jake sounds despairing. “I. I just. Laura is sitting right there-”

“Laura agrees with me,” says Shay, insistently.  “Don’t you, Lau?”

“I refuse to even dignify that suggestion with a response.”

“Dig that grave, Lau,” Shay says, sweetly. Drew hears Laura make that pleased/horrified splutter she always does when Shay decides that it’s Hang All Over Laura Time, which is often. Shay got together with Laura not long after she and Adam had a major fight, and then Shay came out as bisexual. No one was particularly surprised. The two were basically inseperable since then, and Laura was quick to medle into their group.

…And Drew assumes that Hang All Over Laura Time has commenced for its second afternoon session. Shay lowers her voice to a whisper, leaning closer to her girlfriend. “You’re so cute when you have a crush.”

Jake is silent, evidently having given up. There’s a gasp and a squeak, followed by a sound that is vaguely wet, followed by Jay groaning like he’s been punched in the crotch and saying, “Get a fucking room, yeah?”

“Jamie Isaac, you don’t understand,” says Laura, sounding brow-beaten, “Sometimes it’s the only way to get her to stop.”

“Or get her started.” He snorts.

“Well, no, actually, there are several ways to-”

“Stop. Just. Enough.”

“You shouldn’t ask if you don’t want to know-”

“I wasn’t asking-”

“Oh my god, you guys,” Sam speaks up, sounding as annoyed as Drew feels, “Get off it, please. You’re detracting from Jake’s moment.”

“Oh, please.” Jay sounds disgusted.“Because signing up for a summer job that basically forces every damn person in and around the pool to check you out 24/7 is so strenuous. How will poor Jake even deal?”

“That, um,” Jake sounds taken aback, “Was probably the furthestthing from my mind-”

“Sure, Payne. Okay.” Drew can almost hear the wink. “I believe you.”

Drew feels a perplexing urge to roll over and punch Jay in the arm.

“I don’t see youvolunteering to save people from drowning, big brother.”

“Like I’mstupid enough to volunteer to spend all day chasing after snot-nosed kids. Gross.” A pause. “No offense, Jake.”

“None taken,” Jake says, mildly, “I like chasing after kids.”

“Because you’re insane. And a push-over.”

“He isn’t.” Drew decides it’s probably time he interjected on Jake’s behalf. “It’s just that he doesn’t scare children off with his personality. That probably helps.”

“Ouch,”Jay says, sounding rather unfazed, “Nice of you to stop staring directly into the sun in dead silence and join our conversation like a polite human being, by the way.”

“I wasn’t staring directly into the sun.” He’s been enjoyingit, sure, lying on his back with his eyes closed as the warmth covered him (like the green blanket he’s partial to curling up under when he stays at Jake’s), but, well, that had stopped the second the bickering had started up.

“Or should I say,” Jay says, glee fizzling in his voice, “Nice of you to come running to defend your boyfriend-”

Drew actually goes to the effort of opening his eyes and rolling onto his side, so he can prop his head up on his hand and give Jay a Look, because Jay has been making these sorts of accusations increasingly frequently - presumably to get under Jake’s skin. He knows better than to try it with Drew. On Jake, though, it works – almost toowell, making him flush various shades across an impressive spectrum of red and pink, making him stammer in a way that’s… endearing…in an awkward way, like all those YouTube videos of baby kittens Shay kind of sort of has to bug him into watching with her when they’re supposedto be reviewing English – only Jake, of course, is nothing likea baby kitten-

“Yeah, I’m not Jake over here,” Jay says, jerking his thumb at a peculiarly pink Jake, “That shit doesn’t work on me, Drew.”

Drew continues to stare at him. He maintains perfect, icy silence. Much to his irritation, Jay looks as though he is fighting back laughter for every single solitary second of it.

“… I think you made Drew angry,” Shay says, eyes shining with the excitement of impending drama, and as Drew turns to her to make a quick correction (he’s not angry,merely annoyedthat his peaceful afternoon in the sun has been snatched away from him), her expression twists into something bordering on evil,and Drew heaves a massive inward groan.

Stage two, of course, of Jay’s shit-stirring, is when Shay gets on board, at which point, nothing and no one is safe.

“Kind of like when a member of a wolf’s pack- say, their mate- is threatened-”

“Stop it,” Drew says, knowing full well his efforts are futile. He watches as Jake anxiously pulls blades of grass from the ground, one by one.

“-And then the wolf beats the offender to a bloody, gruesome death with their fangs and claws.” Her voice is hushed, breathless.

“Shannon,” says Laura, her voice slightly choked.

“Yes, Lau?” says Shay, very pleasantly indeed.

There’s a beat of silence. Laura is looking at Shay with the purest of despair written across her features.

“Well, yeah,” says Jay, looking faintly taken aback, “I guess. Kinda. Except I seriously doubt Drew’s gonna beat me to death.”

“Try me,” says Drew.

“Drew,” Jake says, tearing his gaze from the ground, looking woundedat the idea of Drew engaging in violence with his cousin over a pity thing like this.

“What?” He’s only continuing the metaphor what Shay started, after all.

“Death threats, Drew?” Clearly, he’s said the wrong thing, given the slightly maniacal glint in Jay’s eyes. “I havepissed you off.”

“Jake,” Drew says, curtly, “Will be an excellentlifeguard.” Using only his eyes, he broadcasts to Jay that there is no room for movement on this issue, before rolling back over to resume his idle position in the sun.

As he does, out of the corner of his eye he catches Jake blushing at about a two on the redness scale, looking at Drew with a rather pleased expression. Drew considers his job done – doubly so when the conversation filters away into something else, something inconsequential, and Drew has his peace again.

“Thank you,” Jake says, later as they walk home in the trail of the setting sun, in that completely sincere way he has of saying things around him that Drew would find hard to believe, coming from anyone else.

Drew doesn’t even need to ask for clarification - knows what he’s talking about. “There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“Well,” Jake says, eyes aglitter, “I still want to thank you.”

Drew pauses, cocking his head a little, because there’s somethingin Jake’s voice.

“The job is a volunteer job,” begins Jake, like he’s delivering a speech in class and this is his intro.

Drew stares at him - I’m listening.

“So I won’t be getting paid,” Jake continues, a wistful look of sorrow crossing his face.

There’s a punchline, here. Drew knows it – he’d know it even if Jake wasn’tdoing the over-excited but trying (and failing) to hide it routine.

“But hey,” says Jake with a shrug, “Free access to the pool, right? For me.” He cocks his head. “Anda friend.”

Drew feels his pulse start to flutter. “Also, you know, I think the manager likes me,” Jake continues, like Drew is meant to be surprised instead of completely and utterly unperturbed that yet anotherwoman in her mid-to-late-thirties has taken a shine to his best friend, “So when I gently suggested maybe bringing you by for a bit after hours every now and then-”

“Yes.” He suspects, on some level, that Jake might be starting to take Shay’s insistence that he shamelessly flirt his way into things on board (“seriously Jake you would notbelieveall the cool shit you can get away with no itisn’tamoral I do itall the time”). While he isn’t quite sure how that makes him feel, he knows it’s inconsequential at this present moment, because there are more importantthings to deal with. And, by the way, it’s kind of nice that people easily notice Jake too, now, isn’t it? Drew is long tired of always standing in the spotlight. And Jake is better at this whole thing. While he’s rather quiet and –to put simply- uninterested, people often just admire him from afar, and that’s how he won the „Unreachable” title, aswell. Jake, however, he has great charisma, knows how to talk to people, and, well, more open. Socially.

 “She said ‘maybe’.” Drew suspects that wasn’t all she said. He’s had these sort of conversations way too many times.

 “Yes.” Drew believes he needs to say nothing further.

“Oh, you wantto be thanked now?” Jake says, warm, almost coy.

“Every day,” Drew says. He is completely serious.

Jake laughs, then, warm and just a touch too loud.

“I’ll do my best,” he says, and Drew is mystified as to why, instead of anything else, he can think only of baby kittens.

 //

 Drew turns up at twenty minutes to closing time on Saturday, finding himself surrounded by a group of kids, and their incessant cannonballing and high-pitched shrieking.

He spots Jake instantly, tall and slightly sun-flushed, and thinks of Laura chastising him for forgetting to reapply sunscreen with due diligence, as Laura has done to each of them in turn, and will mostly likely do again. Laura is very serious about sunscreen, and the seven signs of aging, and lots of other things Drew has listened to her discuss (loudly, often with herself, but that never seems to deter Laura) in excruciating detail but can never quite remember, for some reason.

Though his skin is almost itchingwith longing as he watches the sun glitter-streak off the water’s surface, he makes himself wander over to the seating area, ditching his bag beside him on the ground. It is light, with nothing but his wallet, phone and keys – he’s wearing all he needs.

 The thought strikes him that yellow is reallynot Jake’s colour, eyes slipping down to follow the line of canary board shorts that maybe look a size too small – Drew’s never been much good with or cared about fashion, but he’s prettysure they aren’t supposed to be so tight. It could just be the way they’re clinging to him, dampened by the water, but he guesses it’s not really relevant, anyway – he thinks visibility is supposed to be the point, and he’s certainly extremely visible.

Jake’s always looked good in green, he thinks, tugging his shirt off. Or brown. Or blue, Drew’s always thought. Blue brings out his eyes, or something. Probably.

Drew pauses to wonder when he started caring about this sort of thing, even as he walks over to say hello to Jake.

“Ah, don’t run, please!”

Drew glances up, jerked out of his sartorial reverie by the sound of Jake’s voice, high and loud and commanding, like he’s chastising a kid, and the slap of wet feet against the cement, stopping abruptly. The girl Jake had been calling out to (dark hair, blue eyes, long-limbed, and just a little shorter than Drew, if he had to guess), stops short, bouncing a little as she skids to a halt. She gives Jake a look that is severe only on the surface – even with the distance, Drew can see playfulness wavering on her face.

“Killjoy much?” he hears her say.

Drew realises she’s prettyin the same moment he realises that Jake’s gaze is appreciative.

He finds his hand clenched into a fist– finds that he has to force it open, fingers trembling. Confusion washes over him, because why-

“I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” says Jake, and she giggles,and Drew feels his fingers clench again.

“How cute,”she says, “I think I can take care of myself, though.”

He smiles, gentle, soft. “But let’s not leave it to chance.”

“Oh,”she crows, “You’re serious!”

Drew, for some reason, has never been more thankful for the hour of five PM to arrive – for the girl, and all the screaming children to leave. She straggles, much to his annoyance, to the point where Jake has to gently remind her that opening hours are over.

“Shame. Will you be here next weekend?” she asks.

Jake pauses, mouth dropping open. Drew lets out a breath.

“I,” Jake starts, then stops. “It. Um. Depends on my schedule. Maybe.”

“It’s just I’m prettyprone to running,” she says, all wide eyes, “It might be nice to have someone to remind me to, you know, not.”

Drew suddenly realises that he’s had enough, overwhelmed by the urge to go and stand under the shower for a bit. He turns to go, finding that he has to forcibly unclench his hands again, and walks off in the direction of the change rooms.

“Drew!”

When he glances up, he sees that Jake is alone, throwing an enthusiastic wave at him. Drew waves back, pausing to let Jake catch up to him.

“Making friends?” is the first thing out of his mouth.

“… What?” Jake’s expression flickers confused.

Drew blinks, unsure of where that had come from. “Nothing,” he says, “Never mind.”

Jake makesfriends. He’s goodat it. Drew is used toseeing him smile and laugh with other people. This isn’t new for him.

Jake looks at him for a second longer –Drew can read concern in his face. “Okay,” he says, cheerful again, “Shall we, then?”

And, later, submerged and alone with his best friend, as the sun comes down in shades of purple and orange around them, Drew forgets all about it.

 //

She’s there the next time Drew goes to visit Jake at work. He watches from a distance as they laugh together, as she touches his arm, as she holds a hand up like she’s telling him to wait, before disappearing. In the moment that she’s gone, Drew finds himself wanting to go over and stand by Jake. He doesn’t get a chance to even puzzle out why, let alone walk over to him, before she returns, fully dressed, bag slung over her shoulder.

Drew watches as she hands him something. Drew watches as Jake blushes a little.

Drew finds himself not liking it one bit.

Jake, with a furtive glance around, spots him – he raises a hand in a thankful, enthusiastic wave, turns and says something to the girl, and hurries over.

“Hi!” he chirps, looking and sounding nervous.

“Hi. What’s that?” asks Drew, pointedly, staring at his closed fist.

Jake clears his throat and squeaks out a quick ‘nothing!’,but Drew sees the numbers scrawled on the paper before he shoves it quickly into his bag, out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.

“That’s not nothing. That’s a phone number,” Drew points out, because he’s not going to let Jake try to fool him.

“Um,” Jake says, doing the thing where he avoids eye contact because he’s flustered, “Yeah. I guess.”

“Do you like her?” He feels his jaw clench. He has to force himself to relax it.

“No!”Jake exclaims, head snapping up as he flails almost desperately, “No, I- it just would’ve been rude,to throw it away-” His voice lowers to a furtive hiss, “She’s right there,Drew!”

“Are you going to call her?”

“No,”Jake says, insistently, and then, quiet, hesitant, almost, “She’s… not my type.”

It’s only later, watching TV with his brothers, that Drew realises how much she looks like him.How much she looks like him, only she smilesso much.

Drew thinks about what Jake likes.

“Not his type,” he murmurs.

The people in the movie cheer enthusiastically in response.

 //

 “You’relooking moodier than usual.”

It’s not exactly what Drew wants to be hearing, first thing the next day, when all of them are hanging out in the centre.

“No, I’m not,” he replies, not giving Jay the satisfaction of looking at him.

To his great annoyance, Jay immediately leans forward, ducking so he can peer upwards, directly into Drew’s face. Drew sighs, deep, ragged, and throws his towel over his head, pivoting on his heel to leave the changing room, but more importantly, Jay’s insistent gaze.

“Oh my god.” He stiffens when Jay’s fingers close about his wrist, tugging him back and making him stop in his tracks. “What is withyou?”

“Nothing.” He manages to loosen his jaw at the last second, so that he isn’tspeaking through gritted teeth.

“You’re all agitated and shit,” Jay continues, like he hasn’t spoken, like Drew hasn’t signalled a vehement end to this conversation.

“I am not,” Drew says, “’All agitated and shit’. I’m fine.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to hulk the fuck out and put your fist through a locker?” questions Jay plaintively.

“I don’t.”

“You’re snapping,” Jay points out, considerately, even though Drew is most definitely notsnapping, “You neversnap. C’mon, spill, what’s eating you?”

 “Youare.”

Jay’s eyes flicker - Drew immediately regrets his words. “Well, no,” he says, cheerily, “But that couldbe arranged.”

“Let go of me,” Drew says, not in the mood for Jay’s blowjob-centric humour, “Right now.”

Jay rolls his eyes with a huff, letting go of Drew’s arm. “Fine,” he says, “You fucking drama queen. I’m just gonna go ask Jake, anyway.”

“Do it, then,” replies Drew, turning on his heel and walking away.

Later, coming up for air, he thinks he might hear Jay saying, in a high-pitched, incensed tone of voice, something like, “You try tocareabout a guy, and-”,but he goes down again a second later, and the rest is lost to him. Drew doesn’t care – what does Jay know, anyway?

Nothing,he answers himself, because there’s nothingtoknow.

Later, just after Drew pulls himself out of the pool for a breather, reaching a hand to accept the towel Sam is offering him, Jay’s voice makes him pause.

“Who,”he hears him jeering, “The fuck is Andrea?”

Drew jerks his head up in a sharp glance upwards, and is unsurprised but still sickened to find Jake blushing to the tips of his god damn ears, hand clutched around the phone that’s now buried against his chest.

“No one-” he splutters.

Drew throws the towel and turns, diving back into the water with a significant splash.

//

He knows it wears Jake down, when he refuses to talk. There’s a difference between refusing to speak and not feeling the need to, and Jake’s one of the few who knows how to tell the difference. He knows it bothers him, worries him, maybe scares him a little. He’d know it even if Jake’s words weren’t growing quicker, pleasantry flickering frantic in the corners as he runs through one topic after another, school work friends weather.

He doesn’t, Drew notices, because how could he notnotice, mention the girl. Andrea,Drew thinks, and it kind of makes him want to laugh in a way that’s bleak, insincere.

He wants to ask.

He doesn’t.

“Well,” Jake’s in the middle of saying, bright, desperate, “I have another shift at the aquatic centre this weekend. You’re welcome to come afterhours again-”

“I hate the aquatic centre,” he blurts out. He finds himself blinking, startled, because hedoesn’t usually get like that.

Jake’s expression flickers. He is silent, for a moment.

“You… hate the aquatic centre?” he repeats, like Drew’s just informed him that he now hates piercings and will dye his hair back to blonde the second he gets home.

“…No,” he says, meaning it, because he doesn’thate the aquatic centre. He lovesthe aquatic centre, especially when he gets to be there when it’s quiet, with Jake, and-

Nobody else.

How happy that thought makes him gives him a pause.

He sighs. “I’ll come,” he says.

“Drew.” Drew almost cringes, because he’s using the authoritative, concerned tone of voice that usually prefaces the exact kind of deep and meaningful conversation Drew doesn’t want to have. He tries, in vain, for a pace and a half, but it’s no good – Jake’s stopped walking, and when Drew pivots, reluctant, tense, to look at him, his face is creased with the heaviness of concern.

“Yes,” he says, flat, no uptick.

He thinks the hand on his shoulder might sink him a few inches to the ground, such is the weight of it. It is warm and large and something that he can’t quite place – comfortable, maybe, even if he feels like all of his nerves are buzzing.

“Is everything okay?” Jake asks, just as Drew ducks his head because the effort of eye contact is dragging him down.

Drew has to fight very hard not to react visibly to the question – the question he hates more than the rest of them put together. He thinks he might succeed, but it’s never a sure bet  - not with Jake. “Yes,” he says.

“You seem… tense.” Drew gets the feeling Jake might’ve meant to say something elsethere. “I’m worried-”

“Don’t be.” He winces internally, because his voice had been just a touch too harsh and Jake sort of flinches back. He softens his voice, “I’m okay.”

Jake just looks at him. He isn’t buying it. Drew braces himself.

“Okay,” is all Jake says, and Drew is so taken aback he can’t find words for a moment.

“I’m,” he says, doing it with the intention of finding an end to the sentence before it leaves his mouth.

He doesn’t find it. Jake flashes a brief smile at him, and Drew can seewhat a labour it is for him, how forced it is, before it’s gone, and Jake starts walking again.

 “Jake,” he says, over the crunch of his sneakers quick-stepping through gravel.

“Drew,” Jake says, pleasant, fake, because Drew’s lying to him, and they both know it.

Drew isn’t used to chasing. „Jakey…”

Jake stops.

“Don’t worry about me.” There’s a please, somewhere, buried deep in his words.

“Then tell me what I’ve done?” He isn’t angry – he’s hurt,as Drew had known he’d be, because Jake doesn’t getangry. Drew, sometimes, wishes he would – anger is far easier to swallow, than knowing he’s hurt someone.

“You haven’t done anything,” Drew says – it’s not a lie. Jake hasn’t.

Jake stares at him, reading him, like always. “You’re not lying about that,” he says, and the ‘about that’isn’t lost on Drew.

Drew just shakes his head, wordless.

Jake stares at him for a moment longer, then lets out a sigh. “Then what is it?”

“Nothing.” Jake’s gaze hardens, just a little. Drew lets out a breath. “I don’t know.”

Jake bites his lip, like he does when he’s nervous. Anxious. Hurt,Drew thinks, feeling a flare of self-loathing.

“I hate it,” he says, and Drew tenses, “When you’re distant with me.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Drew says, almost pleading.

“I know you’re not,” Jake says, voice flat, “And I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

Drew makes a noise he had no intention of making, small and surprised, desperate, almost. He has nothing to say, though, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Jake’s expression flickers, then, and he rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says, and Drew can tell he means it.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Drew says hurriedly. “If I did, I would tell you.” I let you in more than anyone else,he wants to say, but Jake, of all people, he thinks, shouldn’t need the reminder.

“Can I help?” It’s cautious – it’s not a let me help.

“When I figure it out.”

Jake just looks at him like he’s hard to look at, like the sun is shining behind him, or maybe like he’s the sun itself.

“Okay,” he says, and it’s the end of it, until Drew’s phone dings softly while he’s getting ready for bed, heralding a message from Jake.

Can’t sleep,guesses Drew, not entirely surprised, thumbing his phone open.

I’m sorry.

Drew stares at the message.

it’s okay,he writes back, and it is, mostly.

//

“Andrew-”

Drew knows exactlywhat Laura coming out of nowhere immediately after Jake leaves the classroom means – it means this is a co-ordinated effort. It means that he is no longer safe.

“I’m fine.”

He’s doing his best not to intimidate Laura. Still, the girl goes strangely pasty, then turns red, then blurts out something garbled but to the effect of “If you say so, Andrew!”,and promptly busies herself with disappearing.

Even as he lets out a quiet huff of relief, Drew knows there’s no way in hell it’s going to be that easy.

//

In the end, it’s Shay who manages to get through to him. Somehow. Drew doesn’t know how he allowed it to happen – all he knows is that he’d been packing his stuff in his bag and preparing to go home, when Shay had somehow managed to catch him with his guard down, and here he is, cornered in the hallway, with Shay’s arms twisted around him from behind, apparently doing her level best to burrow directly into Drew’s body, like some kind of eternally-enthused, long-haired parasite, burying her head into his back.

“So is there a reason you decided to hang back today? Apart from forcing me into cuddling?” He’s suspicious, to say the least – Jake had left earlier in the afternoon, and it’s not that Drew minds going home alone – it’s that he can’t remember the last time Jake had left early. It’s that he’d gotten used to Jake being next to him when they walk home. It’s that he’d gotten used to not remembering how to miss things, and that it’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do, now that he has.

“Oh, Drew,” Shay says, mildly, pausing in her incessant hugging, “I alwayshave a reason.”

“Right,” says Drew, “I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“Something’s upsetting you, Drew.” It’s almost an accusation, though it’s softer, tinted with affection, sadness. It certainly isn’t a question – it certainly isn’t something Drew can deny.

“It couldn’t be you pestering me, could it,” Drew says, because he figures he can try, at least.

“Nah, you love me too much to let that reallybother you,” Shay counters swiftly, and not for the first time, Drew curses her refusal to dance around things, “It’s something else.”

“Mmm,” he grunts.

“Dre-ew,” Shay moans, as if in the throes of perfect, dainty, romance-novel despair, “I’m worriedabout you.”

“Mmm.”

“Why don’t you talk to me?” Shay coos, “You know I won’t tell anybody.”

“Except Laura, five minutes after this conversation,” Drew counters blithely.

Shay lets out an irritated puff of air. “Okay, fine,”she says, grudgingly, “But shewon’t tell anyone else.” There’s a sly pause. “Like Jake, for instance.”

Drew ignores the swell of relief, because that’s total madness, because he’s going to have to have a long, emotive conversation with Shay, whether he likes it or not, and that’s generally never a cause for relief. “I’m not angry at Jake.”

“I know,” Shay says, almost sweetly, and Drew sighs, because of courseshe knows. The squeeze of Shay’s arms about his waist is comforting, for just a moment, before it turns over-eager, almost hard enough to hurt. “But there’s,” her voice lowers, “Tension.”

“If you say so.”

“Please sit down and talk to me, Drew? Even if it’s just ten minutes?”

“Five,” Drew says, neatly.

“Seven,” Shay replies.

“Seven,” agrees Drew, “And you have to stop being a pest afterwards.”

“I’m nota pest,” Shay sulks.

“You area pest, and you’re getting seven minutes, or you’re getting nothing.” Shay might be persistent, but Drew knows how to bargain people, too, thank you very much.

Shay breathes out a sigh against his back. “Fine,” she says, “Seven minutes.”

He lets go of Drew (mostly – in actual fact she steps back from Drew and slides a hand down to grasp his hand, but Drew will take what he can get) springing away in the general direction of the school yard, pulling Drew along.

She seats herself in one of the benches outside, then pats the space next to her – Drew obliges her.

Shay nudges him. “Well?” she says. Her tone turns mischievous, “Or are you waiting for me get a stopwatch so I can time my seven minutes to the second?”

“What do you mean?” Drew deadpans, “It’s already started.”

“Drew.”Shay folds her arms across her chest, looking admonishing.

“What?”

“Don’t be rude, for one thing.” She narrows his eyes. “Quit stalling, for another.”

Drew sighs, knowing there’s no point in protesting. He doesn’t particularly wish to be eviscerated with shirt-tugging and desperate pouting.

“There’s this girl,” he says, a little surprised at how, well, frustratedhis own voice is.

“There’s this what,” says Shay, perfectly toneless, as if in shock.

“At the aquatic centre.”

“There’s a girl,” repeats Shay, looking dumbstruck, “At the aquatic centre.”

“She’s always therewhen I go to visit Jake.”

Shay stares at him like she’s the final scene of Rosemary’s Baby – with fascination, and the slightest tinge of horror. Drew’s slightly, grudgingly glad that Shay seems to understand.

“Exactly,” he says.

“Um,” Shay says, sounding strained, “Okay. Run that by me again?”

Drew just stares at her.

Shay clears her throat. She lets out a nervous laugh. “Right,” she says, “Okay. Just. That’s. Not what I was expecting.”

“Well,” Drew says, “I guess… it was going to happen eventually.”

“Yeah, this? This is totallyout of the blue for me.” She still sounds choked – like she’s still struggling to come to terms with Drew’s words. Drew blinks. “But you’re alwaystalking about how attractive he is.”

He almost adds „Or how attractive I am.”

He doesn’t.

“How attractive whois?” Shay looks helpless, confused, like Drew’s trying to speak to her in Japanese.

“… Jake,” Drew says. Confusion, apparently, is violently contagious.

Shay stares at him for what Drew believes verges on a full minute, eyes dark, non-comprehending.

“Oh!”she gasps at last, clapping a hand over her mouth with a loud smackthat Drew suspects probably hurt her, “Oh, Jake,of course.”Her eyes sparkle, her expression turning vaguely maniacal. “This girl has romantic designson Jake!”

 “Yeah,” says Drew, perplexed, “That’s what I said.”

“Of course it is, Drew,” chirps Shay, “How silly of me.”

And, as he often does when it comes to Shay, Drew has the creeping feeling of having missed something vital.

Shay leans in, her voice lilting, conspiratorial, and coos, “And that bothersyou, Drew? This girl, I mean?”

“She’s… pushy,” Drew says, after a moment of thought, “And she looks like me. I think.”

And Shay laughs. It’s high and sharp, like it’s been jerked out of her with a surge of surprise. “It isn’t funny, Shay,” he says, knowing he’s scowling a little and not particularly caring.

“No, Drew,” says Shay, around a mouthful of giggles, “Of course it isn’t, I’m sorry-”

“If you were sorry, you’d stop laughing.”

“Right,” Shay says, face snapping solemn, to attention, “No more laughing, Drew. This is a matter of the utmost seriousness.” She points at her face and narrows her eyes, voice dropping to the same pitch she uses when she’s imitating her girlfriend, and says, “See how serious I am?I’m basically Laura.”

“I’m revoking the rest of your minutes,” Drew says.

“You’re not,” Shay counters, neatly. Drew rolls his eyes, because yeah, he’s not. “So, she’s like you?”

“No,”Drew protests, a little offended, “She’s loud. And laughs too much.”

“Mmmmmm.” It’s a little too knowing for Drew’s liking. “So it’s just the looks?’

“Well,” Drew says, “She’s a girl,obviously.”

“But?”

Drew definitely does not growl. “There’s… a resemblance.I guess.”

“Dark hair?” Drew nods. “Blue eyes?” At his second nod, Shay leans forward and coos, “Long legs?”

“… I don’t have long legs,” Drew protests, suddenly feeling a little heated.

“Drew, please,” says Shay, obviously amused, “This is no time to be modest.”

“I don’t.”They’re no longer than anyone else’s, anyway.

“Uh-huh,” says Shay, cocking her head, “Sure. You realise Jake is way into legs and hips, right?”

Drew stares at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” trills Shay, “Just that Jake is way into nice legs and hips.”

Drew is suspicious. “How do you even know that?”

“How do you notknow?” Shay replies, like she’s being very patient and understanding of Drew’s slowness. “It’s like, the first thing he mentions when he thinks someone’s cute. Apart from the eyes, I guess.”

Is it?Drew wonders, as the vague thought that Jake has a historyof finding people cute occurs to him. Of course. Jake briefly dated two girls when they were younger. It’s himself who’s been uninterested in dating all his life. “I… wouldn’t know,” he says, realisation dawning on him, “We never really talk about that sort of thing.”

“Oh, really,” says Shay, eyes widened, folding her arms across her chest, tapping a finger on her upper arm as if in thought, “How weird.”

Isit weird? Drew doesn’t know. Jake, at least, never really seemed to feel the need to bring things like that up, and Drew knows for certain he’s never really found anyone cutelike that.

“Is it?” he asks, “Weird, I mean.”

“Well, I mean,”Shay says, raising her eyes skyward as if deep in thought, “Italk to Jake about this sort of thing.”

Drew is only mildly surprised. “About Laura?”

Shay giggles. Drew decides to ignore it and switch direction. “Has he mentioned-” the cringe is slight but it’s there, “Andrea?”

“… Andrea,” repeats Shay, looking dangerously close to laughter again, “So she’s an Andy, too?”

Drew sets his jaw. “Has he mentioned her?” His voice is pointed, razor-sharp.

As expected, it has absolutely no effect on Shay. “Is Andy a little bit jealous of new Andy?” she coos, her voice a theatrical almost-whisper.

“There isno new Andy,” Drew corrects her, because Shay needs to get her facts straight, “He doesn’t call her Andy.”

That he knows of, anyway, he realises, thoughts going to the fact that Jake has her numberand has been getting textsfrom her and-

The thought is a sickening one.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Shay trills.

Drew has to take a moment to unclench his jaw, because speaking through clenched teeth will do absolutely nothing to help his case. “I,” he says, voice cold even to his own ears, “Am not jealous.”

“Okay,” says Shay, her amusement turning tinged with shrewdness.

“What do I have to be jealousof?” Drew demands, waving an annoyed arm in demonstration. Stupid question,he thinks, sourly, to himself, Stupid Shay and her stupid questions.

Shay stares at him, wide-eyed. “You’re absolutely right, Drew,” she says, innocent, pure as the driven snow in the exact way Drew knows she’s not, “What doyou have to be jealous of?”

“Absolutely nothing,” says Drew.

“Right,” says Shay, cheerfully, “Absolutely nothing.”

“Glad you understand,” says Drew, tersely, sure his eyes are blazing.

“Oh, I understand perfectly,Drew,” says Shay, with a smile, and, again, the creeping feeling of having missed something trickles down Drew’s spine. “Anyway,” she says, her tone dismissive, “No, Jake hasn’t mentioned her. You don’t need to worry.”

Good,is the thought that springs, unbidden, to Drew’s mind.  “I wasn’t worried.”

“Right, Drew. My bad.”

It takes him a moment to realise that Shay is smirking at him.

“What?” he demands.

“You’re smiling, Drew,” Shay informs him.

“I’m not.”

“Ah,” says Shay, knowingly, cocking her head, “Maybe a trick of the light, then?”

In an unprecedented event, Drew leaves his conversation with Shay feeling betterabout things.

//

For the first time in a week, Drew feels no apprehension, while waiting for Jake to pick him up for school. If he was a whistler, like Joey, or prone to humming, like Dominic, he would be – instead he plugs his earphones into his phone, and lets the music take his mind off of bothersome thoughts.

Today, he thinks, with a borrowed streak of Jake’s optimism, will be a good day.

It takes him a while longer to realise that the day, in fact, is basically already going on, and that his brothers are already off, and that, perhaps, Jake is running late.

A minute later he’s padding off to his bedroom, to check his phone, for like the first time in twenty-four hours.

He’s instantly alarmed as he thumbs the screen open to a message from Jake.

Drew, I’m sick :/,it reads, and Drew’s heart sinks like a brick hurled into the ocean, Dads think it’s the flu so they’re taking me to the doctor. I won’t be at school today – I’m sorry.

Only Jake would apologise for getting the flu, Drew thinks to himself – only Jake -with an impatient shake of his head, and before he even realises what he’s done, he’s texted back, do you need me?His chest tightens with something that tastes like anxiety, but the feeling doesn’t even get a chance to take root before his phone vibrates again.

Drew. Please don’t tell me you’re still at home.Jake really shouldn’t be able to admonish him this well over a text message.

no,texts back Drew, pausing for a moment to draw his curtains (he knows, logically, that Jake can’t see him, but still, better to be safe than sorry).

Oh, good. But please don’t come over. I don’t want to make you sick, too:/

Drew, meanwhile, is busily assembling a soup in his mind. He’ll have to make a trip to the grocery store after school.

feel better,he texts. It doesn’t feel like enough, though – it feels like a half-finished sketch, bare bones, no heart, no soul,but he doesn’t know what more to do with it, what else to say.

He hits send, sighing as he sets his phone down on the bed.

The phone vibrates again as he’s heading out the front door. Drew snatches it up.

Can you please get my homework?

yes,texts back Drew, because it is,after all, an excuse to see Jake, but if he thinks Drew’s going to let him worry about homeworkof all things when he’s sick, well, he’s got another thing coming.

//

Literature is boring,Drew realises, when Jake isn’t in the room to turn to him and communicate through looks, make faces at each other and exchange notes when they’re both too done with absorbing any more information about the subject.

He certainly isn’t absorbing information now.He’s fairly certain he hasn’t absorbed any information since this morning, when he’d learned of Jake’s illness. It’s not like he isn’t trying(so what if he’s not trying especially hard) – it’s just that his default state is staring out the window, and without Jake there, he finds himself doing it more often than not.

By the time history period ends, kindly segueing into lunch, Drew is so deathly bored he’s considering going home ‘sick’ himself – he’d spent the entire lesson doodling, ink smeared up the underside of his hand. The only thing that’s keeping him here is his earlier promise to Jake to bring him the homework he’d missed, even ifDrew feels as though he’s just going to cause him moresuffering than he’s already experiencing in doing so.

“Dre-eew!” Shay chirps, when he joins them at the table, “Where were you this morning?”

“Late,” replies Drew, listlessly.

“… Late doing what?” says Shay, voice hushed, as though the answer will be some grand shocking secret that will make them all gasp. Drew often wonders what it’s like to live Shay’s life – if it’s as exciting and occasionally terrifying as it appears to be.

Drew just shrugs, because sometimes Shay asks stupid questions, slipping his satchel off his shoulder and neatly sitting down beside Laura. He goes for his lunch with the vague hope of having something to busy his hands and mouth with so Shay stops interrogating him, when he realises he isn’t even hungry, anyway.

Which isweird, a little, he guesses, given that he skipped breakfast, too.

Maybe he isactually getting sick.

“Where’s Jake?” Shay presses him, leaning over, stopping justshort of that thin line of personal space Drew finds ideal.

“Sick,” says Drew, and then, “The flu. Probably.”

Shay lets out a theatrical gasp that is probably at least ninety per cent sincere. Laura’s face falls. Sam looks pained.

No one elsegets this kind of reception when they’re ill, Drew thinks wryly - unless it’s Laura, at which point the loud and completely over the top ray of unrelenting sunshine that is Shay becomes obscured by a dark cloud of sorrow and concern, usually prompting her to commit such acts of worried delusion as attempting to cook for her ailing girlfriend (Drew stilldoesn’t understand how Shay managed to set the boiling water on fire).

“Poor Jake!” pouts Shay, looking devastated. “We must check up on him!”

“I’m taking his homework to him,” Drew says, abruptly, to a slight, approving smile-and-nod from Laura, “And soup. Later.”

Shay nods, hair bouncing with her enthusiasm. „We should probably all go.”

“I really don’t think-” Drew begins.

“Shannon,” Laura cuts in, her voice warm, sugary, in the ‘listen to me please Shay, I am the sane, reasonable half of this relationship – and I regard sunscreen as a deity’ way, “We can’tgo over to Jake’s now.”

„Okay, but-”

“I would be terriblyworried if you were to fall ill,” Laura says, and Shay pauses, looking at her with wide eyes, and Drew would almost swear that they’re actuallysparkling.

Then the moment passes and Shay’s letting out a small, breathy ‘okay’and burying her face against Laura’s shoulder, Sam cracks a smile, and Drew’s pretty sure he’s actually gaping at Laura.

Teach me,he attempts to convey with his gaze, and even though Laura isn’t Jake, he’s pretty sure she gets the idea, because a small smile flickers across her face before she lowers her gaze to the ground, something like bashful. No, seriously,he tries again, but Laura isn’tJake, and she’s already distracted by Shay.

Said girl raises her head after a moment, peering with caution at Drew. “Can you take Jake a note?” she asks.

Drew shrugs – he doesn’t see why not.

“And gifts?” Shay prompts, looking faintly excited.

“I’m going over after school,” points out Drew, “There won’t be enough time.”

Drew, of course, should’ve realised his mistake immediately – there is alwaysenough time, because Shay, somehow, is alwaysprepared, and it’s probably not even worth the effort of wondering why she had exactly eight spare erasers, each shaped like a different adorable cat doing carrying out a different adorable task, anyway – not when he knows full well that Jake will love them.

 //

“Ah, Drew!”

Drew has always known that Jake gets his soothing demeanour from Tristan– they speak with the same inflection, the same kind light behind their brown eyes. They even somehow carry the same touch in their hands, as different as they are.

He sighs, “Jake’s been shut up in his room for most of the day.”

“How is he?” Drew asks, more because he knows that Jake gets difficultwhen he’s ill, to the point of refusing to accept the reality that yes, he may be confined to bed for a few days. Jake rarely, well, whinesabout things, but this is one of them. His tendency for stir-craziness rivals even Shay’s sometimes.

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” he says, with a smile, “It’s only the flu. He’s a bit sad and a bit feverish, but I’m more worried about turning around and finding him trying to mend the fence. Or that he’s escaped out the window to check on you because he’s worried.”

Drew has noticed that his ears have a tendency to burn randomly these days. “Me?” he says.

“You should’ve heard him this morning!” he exclaims, his tone tinged with exasperation, “’What if Drew this, what if Drew that?’. I had to tell him that you’re an independent young man who can get himselfto school.”

Barely,Drew thinks, idly. He certainly struggled today.

“Mm. He’s been worried about you, lately,” Tristan says, casually, “More than usual,” and Drew recognises this play – it’s his way of making sure he’s okay without unsettling him, framing it in terms of what Jake’s feeling. His intuition is as strong as his son’s is - Drew often finds himself thankful for it.

“I’m alright,” he says.

Tristan nods, smiling. “Alright. I’ll make sure my son fully understands there’s no reason to stage a jailbreak, then.”

He sends Drew towards the kitchen so he can give the soup he brought to Liam.

“You’re such a good kid,” Liam sighs, swooping over to remove the lid so he can inspect it, “Jake could stand to learn a thing or two about cooking from you.”

Drew has to bite his tongue around the probably a lost causethat’s fighting to escape him, because, well, it’s not like Jake doesn’t try.It’s just that after the last time, when Jake set off the smoke alarm by burning rice to the bottom of his fathers’ good pot so badly they’d had to give it up for lost, he’s not exactly in a rush to try again. Maybe with something of an easier difficulty. Something that isn’tpeeling vegetables, because last time they’d tried that Jake had pretty much skinned his knuckle clean off with the peeler. Sometimes Drew is really thankful for his dad, Benji, who was downright taught how to cook by Della, and so his father decided to pass his knowledge through all his three sons, too.

Drew gestures to his bag. “I brought his homework.” And letters of encouragement.

“Oh, you area good kid,” Liam says, chuckling.

“Can I give it to him?” he asks, because Liam is as protective as he is terrifying sometimes.

“Go ahead,” he says, “Just try not to inhale too much. Germs and all that.”

“You don’t mind if I wake him?”

“He’s probably already awake. Besides, it’ll do him good to see you, I think.”

Drew nods, turning to go.

“He misses you, too,” he says, his voice gentle, knowing.

Drew almost stops. He doesn’t, but he doesnotice the tips of his ears are burning again.

He does what he’d never do otherwise and knocks before he enters Jake’s room.

“Mrrrr,” is the response he gets, or something vaguely approximating that, vibrating through the door – almost purrlike, but more pathetic and discomforted. The jury is out on the comparative cuteness factor.

“It’s me,” Drew says, hand on the doorknob.

There’s a pause, presumably as Jake’s fever-addled brain catches up with reality.

“Drew!” Drew can ignore the terrible way his voice cracks because of how bright, enthused, genuinely happyhe sounds, “Wh- but- don’t come in, you’ll get-”

Drew rolls his eyes and turns the doorknob. Like hell.

“-Sick,” Jake finishes lamely as the door swings open, even if his eyes light up at the sight of Drew.

Although that could just be his eyes glistening because he’s sick. He’s definitelysick, Drew thinks with a pull of sympathy and something else, maybe – covered in twoquilts and surrounded by a quite frankly completely gross nest-like gathering of used tissues, his eyes are dark and wet and half-lidded with tiredness, his face pale like paper. There’s an empty mug that presumably used to house tea on the bedside table – Drew makes a note of it so he can make sure he gets more.

“Got your homework,” Drew says without ceremony, crossing over to the bed.

“Drew,”Jake protests, his voice weak, strained, the idiot making it worse by trying to sit up, “Don’t get too close-”

“Lie down,”Drew almost snaps at his needlessly heroic best friend, because what is he doing. Jake obeys, reluctance written on his face. “Give me five minutes. I’ll be fine, Jake.”

“What if-” Drew doesn’t get to find out exactly what if, because Jake interrupts himself with a rather loud sneeze. And another.

At the third sneeze, Drew busies himself with opening his bag and digging through it for Jake’s homework – Shay had generously provided a pink plastic file to keep it all together. He sets it down on the bedside table, and proceeds to yank a handful of tissues free from the tissuebox beside it, holding them out for Jake, for when his sneezing fit concludes.

Jake gives him a severe look, when he’s done. “You’re going to get sick,” he says.

“Take the tissues, Jake,” Drew says, archly, “Quit being a hero.”

Jake relents after a moment with a deep sigh, reaching out to take them. “Thank you,” he says, sounding absolutely miserable, proceeding to blow his nose. Another thing he does loudly, Drew realises.

“How’re you feeling?”

“I could’ve gone to school.”

“Terrible, then,” Drew surmises, because he can almost feelthe lie.

Jake lets out a moan that is just a touchover-dramatic. “I feel like my head is full of liquid,” he complains, “Like it’s heavy. And this fever-”

Drew doesn’t even realise he’s reaching out until his knuckles are gently brushing across Jake’s forehead.

 “You arewarm,” Drew notes with concern, because he is –he feels almost like he’s coal-powered, like a furnace.

“Mmmm,” Jake manages, tilting his head towards Drew, eyes half-lidded. Drew’s hand trails across Jake’s hairline, brushing his hair back from scattering, messy, in his face-

Jake blinks, slow, incoherent, and Drew stops, because he hadn’t meant-

Everythingfucking stops, and Drew hatesit. He’s pretty surehe hates it, anyway, snatching his hand back like Jake’s literally on fire instead of just overheating. Jake just stares at the path his hand makes, woozy-eyed, like it’s a laser pointer in the dark.

“You,” Drew says, and then he swallows, hard, and tries again, “You just need to sweat it out.”

“Yeah,” says Jake, his voice raspy, looking at Drew with shining eyes. Eyes that are shining because he’s sick, Drew reminds himself.

“You’ll be fine,” Drew says, aware that he’s speaking very quickly. “I- I made you soup.”

“Oh,” Jake says, sounding dazed, “Thank you.”

“It’ll help with the. Sick. The fever. You know.” Lots of chilli,he almost says, but doesn’t. “Make sure you. Eat it.”

“Thank you,” Jake says again, looking at Drew like he can see right through his skin, “I will.”

Cold and flu meds, Drew reminds himself hastily – cold and flu meds.“Anyway,” he blurts out, “You should. I mean. If you have any questions about the homework. Now would be the time.”

“… Right,” says Jake, and for a second, Drew thinks he hasn’t even been following what he’s been saying. Then he reaches out for the pink file. Drew half-expects him to comment on it, but he doesn’t – just opens the snap button with a plasticky crackle and slides the bundle of paper out.

His eyes widen, then soften. “Drew,” he says, hushed, and his voice would almost be a coo if it wasn’t so rough. Drew realises there’s something about his tone of voice that he likes.

“Yeah?”

“Is this me?”

He’s pointing to the page in front of him, Drew notices with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He leans over despite every instinct of self-preservation, to find that, yes, it isa sketch of Jake, smiling, and that, yes,he issupposed to be wet, and shirtless, as evidenced by the bare collarbones sketched out in blue pen, and that, yes,his head iswreathed by a crown of sparkles.

Fuck fuck fuck,when had he even-

Part of him idly considers the prospect that Jake might be sick enough for him to simply reach over, pluck the sheet of paper from his hands, and take it elsewhere to tear it to pieces and make sure it never sees the light of day,ever again. They own a stove. He could burn it. Easily. No one would ever know.

Jake shatters that illusion swiftly by remarking, “It’s reallygood,” staring down at the sheet of paper with his glistening, fever-wet eyes, “But I’m pretty sure I don’t look thatgood right now-”

“It,” Drew fumbles, words blurting out like an anxious splatter of paint, “It. It’s you. Better. Feeling better. That’s why the. Sparkles. And.”

Jake’s smiling, distantly, Drew’s full of shit, and he gets the feeling that they bothknow it.

“Actually,” Drew says, clearing his throat abruptly, because it feels like the walls are closing in with every intention of eating him alive, “You know what, I think I feel a cough coming on – if you have any questions, maybe text me.”

“Drew-”

“You should get some rest, anyway,” Drew continues, like Jake hasn’t spoken, “Feel better.”

The next few minutes pass by in an anxious blur – him scrambling out of Jake’s room and down the stairs, denying Liam’s offer of a cup of tea because he reallyneeds to get home, really,it’s imperative,he might actually dieif he doesn’t, but saying that Jake probably needs a new one, waving a hasty goodbye to Tristan, dashing past the entryway and out the door and into the night. He doesn’t stop until he hits his bedroom, slamming the door shut and leaning against it, sinking down to the floor with a deep, long, exhale.

“Fuck,” he says, his voice blithe, deadpan, because fuck.

His phone chirps. Drew, against his better judgement, slides it open, to a message from (who else) Jake.

Are you alright?

yes. enjoy the cat erasers. they’re from Shay. good night.

He hits send before he realises what the fuck he’s doing.

It’s at this point Drew realises the futility of the situation, and hurls his phone across the room, because, clearly, he can’t be trusted with it – he can’t be trusted with anything.

“What am I doing,” he asks aloud of his empty bedroom, more of a statement than a question.

The room has no answer. Nor does Drew.

He covers his face, knowing he’ll have to check his phone at some point – but not today.

And that’s good enough.

//

“What does it mean,” he asks Shay, the next day at lunch, when Laura’s off to pick up some food and Sam has his head buried in homework back in the classroom, “When you-”

But he cuts himself short, even though Shay glances up at him, eyes wide and curious, when he hears Laura approach.

“When you what, Drew?” presses Shay, with a steely gaze of scrutiny and a soft tilt of her head.

“Nothing,” says Drew, “Never mind.”

“Did I interrupt something?” asks Laura, looking faintly mortified at her own rudeness.

“Nothing important,” Drew replies, with a shrug.

It was probably a stupid question, anyway.

//

For three days, he goes to school alone and returns home alone, and spends the entire time feeling like he woke up one morning wired wrong. He drops off Jake’s homework each evening, leaving it with his dads, because they’re right, and all, about it being counter-productive for Drew to end up sick, too. He flicks through each sheet on the way home to make sure he hasn’t done something stupid like doodle Jake like he’s straight out of one of those magazines Shay devours and Laura pretends to hate for being ‘pedestrian and quite frankly insulting’ again – he never has, and Jake, thankfully, neglects to mention it. Perhaps he’s forgotten.

Drew certainly hopeshe has.

He gets out of the shower on Friday evening to a message from Jake, and Drew slides his screen open, thinking he maybe forgot something, some part of the homework.

See you at work tomorrow?

Drew stares at the message for a long moment.

you’re sick,he texts back, because this, he thinks, is fairly obvious, you’re not going to work tomorrow. On pain of death, if necessary.

In the time it takes for him to pull a shirt on, Jake’s written back: I’m feeling much better! :) Plus being cooped up inside has been driving me crazy. And I haven’t seen you in like a week.

Three days, fifteen hours,Drew corrects to no one, for which he is suddenly, dizzyingly thankful, when he realises what just went through his head.

Moving on.

do your fathers know about this.If anyone is an accurate judge of Jake’s tendency towards needless, self-sacrificing heroism, it’s Liam.

Drew! Of course they do.

Drew squints at his phone in suspicion. are your dadsokaywith this.

I haven’t run a temperature in a day and I’m barely even sneezing anymore!

Drew notes that Jake didn’t answer his question, which means the answer is either an outright ‘no’ or a ‘not exactly’, or at absolute besta ‘yes, but’.

what are y,he begins, but deletes it after a moment, because he doesn’t want to sound overbearing. why are you doi

you should probably stay in

what did the doctor

you’re anidiot

Not for the first time in his life, Drew idly considers ‘accidentally’ dropping his phone in the garbage.

what if you’re still sick?he settles for, in the end, because that’s a sane, perfectly reasonable, totally normal question any friend would ask.

I’m fine, Drew! Really. You don’t have to worry.

i’m not,Drew almost texts back defensively, but his phone buzzes and flashes before he can actually hit send.

Will I see you there? :)

Drew pauses. He thinks about how long it’s been since he got to see Jake. He thinks about being alone with him.

He thinks about uncomfortable questions about certain absent-minded doodles on certain inconvenient pieces of paper.

actually,texts Drew, i think i might’ve caught something from you. i feel pretty sick. sneezing and stuff.He doesn’t. He doesn’t even rememberthe last time he sneezed.

Jake doesn’t text back for five minutes. Six. Seven. Drew feels a peculiar urge to drink something strong (he never does) and just black out, and idly considers the possibility that he might be spontaneously transforming into Jay. It would certainly explain all the strange, erratic impulses he’s been the victim of lately.

Oh no! :( I’m so sorry, Drew – that’s terrible!

i’ll be ok,he texts back, quickly, because the lastthing he needs is Jake worrying about him and getting it into his head that it might be a reasonable idea to visitDrew and fawn over him in person,even though he’s only just (allegedly) started getting better himself, just need to rest for a couple days.

Unfortunately for Drew, his clever lie only results in Jake texting him about once every fifteen minutes, with everything from sorrysto I’msosorrys,to I feel terrible,to I shouldn’t have let you come in and see me that day-

Drew had almost been on the verge of recanting his lie and telling Jake what was reallytroubling him - until the last text, at which point he’d remembered that that was the exactconversation he was trying to avoid.

i’m going to sleep,is what he settles for, you should, too, if you have an early start.

Another long pause. Drew tries not to count the minutes (eight, nine, ten, eleven-)

You’re right. Let me know if you need anything. Good night, Drew!

Drew doesn’t text back, but he does lie awake for quite a while, promising to himself that tomorrow, he’s not going to even lookat his phone.

Not even once.

 //

He hears his phone ring from down the hall, while he’s snuggled up to his nose in his blankets. He doesn’t get up for it – he was only able to fall asleep like five minutes ago, after all.

Then the phone rings again. This time it’s the obnoxious, jangly pop music that heralds a call from Shay, who had programmed the ringtone into Drew’s phone for herself, because Shay’s the only one who gives a shit about that kind of thing.

No,he thinks to himself, Absolutely not,and he closes his eyes, serenely waiting for the phone to ring out, the giggle-like hiccupping vocals and bright, gleaming synth coming into an abrupt halt.

Until it rings again.

Drew just pulls the blanket over his head, covering his ears. This muffles Shay’s ringtone rather nicely, and Drew lets out a sigh of relief, and busies himself with notthinking about Jake, because lately thinking about Jake just calls up a weird, unsettling mixture of cat videos on YouTube feelings and unbidden terror, so he tunes his mind to the comfortable place of formless white noise, like a radio dialled between stations.

He hopes Jake is okay at work.

“Fuck,” he says, out loud, only it comes out more like fuugh  because of the blanket, and he briefly considers screaming into it. Where else, if not there, anyway.

Maybe he shouldtalk to Shay. Shay, if nothing else, is intuitive and good with emotions-

Andgood at complicating things,the sane, reasonable part of him objects.

Things seem pretty complicated as they stand.

The sane, reasonable part of himself seems to have no interest in dignifying that with a response. Fair.

His phone begins to sing again. He rolls his eyes before squeezing them shut.

He doesn’t care if the universe istrying to tell him something.

Drew keeps his eyes closed, lets himself lose himself for as long as he can, trying harder and harder to fall back asleep or at least just mute out the rest of the world around him. It distracts him, well enough, sometimes his phone is singing in the background and sometimes it’s not.

He hears the sound of chimes, glittering in the wind, then chords, then –

Oh. That’ssomeone else. Again. Maybe with an actualemergency.

He gets to his feet with a surge of irritation, idly regretting not switching his phone to silent in the first place.

He checks the screen.

He sighs.

“Hello?”

“Andrew Alexander Morgan!”Shay’s voice splits through his head like a particularly shrill bolt of lightning, and oh he knows she’s mad when she calls him by his full name. “You’ve been dodging my calls!”

Drew almost responds with some combination of ‘manipulative’ and ‘devious’ and ‘fuck’, but manages to restrain himself at the last second. “I was in bed,” he explains.

“I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour,” Shay complains, and it’s then that Drew realises she sounds rattled.

“… Is something actuallywrong?” he asks, with a twinge of guilt.

“’Actually wrong’,” repeats Shay, sounding a little affronted, “Drew, you’re such a dick sometimes. I’m at WC General, we allare, Jake’s family, too-”

Drew’s hand clutches so tightly around his phone he thinks the screen probably cracks. “What?”he chokes out - his fingertips feel numb, all of a sudden, and he feels like he can’t breathe,like he’s actuallydrowning. “What happened?”

“Don’t freak,” Shay says, sounding like she knows it’s hopeless even as she says it, “But Jake hurt himself at work.”

“Hurt himself how?” Shay’s being evasive. Drew knows it.

“He fainted, and fell in the pool, but-”

Drew’s heart thuds into his ribcage so hard it almost hurts. “I’ll be right there,” he says, thinking it probably comes out as a garbled mess that Shay can barely understand.

“Drew, wait a second,you don’t-!!”

But Drew’s already disconnected the call, dashing over to the clean laundry basket to pull out the first outfit he gets his hands on. He’s out the door thirty seconds later, sliding his phone open to dial a number, feeling sick, nausea crashing through him, because he could’vebeen there.

He should’vebeen there, and he’d said no.

 //

It takes him twenty minutes to get to the hospital – twenty minutes and a viscerally awkward taxi ride because, okay, yes, he istrying not to cry, and the taxi driver had obviously put together why the second he’d blurted out his destination. What had resulted was twenty minutes of silence, which Drew wouldn’t have minded all that much, had the driver not kept glancing over and opening his mouth like he wanted to say something, ask some question Drew had absolutely no interest in answering.

In the end, the driver had bestowed upon him an awkward pat on the shoulder accompanied by a tentative, “It’ll be okay, son,” and had knocked a few dollars of the charge, at which point Drew had basically thrown the money at him, fled from the car to the reception desk, blurted out ‘Jacob Payne’ to a startled looking nurse, and ran all the way to the floor she’d told him.

He catches sight of the others a few seconds before his heavy footsteps startle them into looking up, skidding to an abrupt halt and leaning over, half to catch his breath, half to conceal undignified things that might be transpiring on his face this exact second.

“It’s about fucking time you got here, you neglectful asshole,” Jay crows, loudly, as Laura casts a nervous glance at him, “What’ve you been doingall day, lying in your-?”

He gets a good look at Drew’s face. The smirk drops.

“Have you been crying?” he demands, looking completely astonished. Laura looks heartbroken over his shoulder.

Drew just stares at Jay like what does it look like?

“Oh,” Jay says, his voice faint with starkly apparent shock, “Okay. That’s.”

“I need to see him,” Drew rasps, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Drew -” says Shay, softly, from his right, and a second later Drew can feel her hand, small, insistent, clutched around his own.

Drew takes a deep breath, because if he doesn’t, someoneis going to get hit. “I need to see him,”he repeats.

“Dre-ew!,” says Shay, yankingon his hand for emphasis, “It’s okay-”

“It is not,”Drew bursts out, distantly aware of how high and shrill his voice is, like someone else is speaking and he’s just listening, “Okay.He could’ve drowned, he could be -”

“Drew!”Shay shouts, and Drew lets out a strangled sound as he feels fingernails digging into his hand with no mercy, and fuck, they’re sharp as hell,which is obviously where Shay, being an actual demon, is actually from,“It’s just a concussion.”

Drew’s heart jams like a printer choking on a sheet of paper. “What,” he manages, just barely managing to avoid choking on the word itself.

“Jake pushed himself too hard and went back to work too early,” Shay explains, her voice gentle, like Drew is a panicking kitten that needs to be soothed with sweet words and a jingly toy, “He blacked out for a second, slipped and hit his head – not that hard,Drew, please don’t look so scared –and fell in the pool. But someone pulled him out!” she exclaims, suddenly, like Drew’s responded in some other way apart from staring in mute shock, “He’s okay. I promise.”

“A… concussion,” repeats Drew, slowly, faintly registering that Shay is petting his hand.

A concussion.

“Which you would’ve knownif you hadn’t freaked outand stayed on the phone with me,” Shay continues, and Drew finally looks down at her, taking in a deep breath. Shay, somehow, looks rather amused by everything – by Drew,he realises.

Shay is laughingat him, and that’s just not allowed.

“I’m not freaking out,” he hears himself say. He’s fine. Calm. Definitely no heart palpitations.

Unfortunately for him, Tristan breaks any potential illusion of self-control by offering him a tissue.

“For your eyes,” he says, kindly.

Drew, with a deep-seated, lurching horror, realises he’s being mothered by his best friend’s dad.

“Well, isn’t that just funaaaagh,”Jay trails off with a groan, because Shay has dealt him a swift punch to the bicep accompanied by a pointed look of mild outrage, “Freaking.Freaking touching.”

Drew attempts to cause a distraction by blowing his nose into the tissue, but it fails – Tristan just continues, obliviously, “He only hit his head, Drew! That’s not new!”

Jay lets out something closely resembling a cackle at this. Drew feels protective, and almost goes to say something, but then he remembers that Tristan is right – Jake hitting his head isnothing new. Jake has a habit of walking into low door frames he’s been passing through for years - surfaces don’t play nice with Jake’s head in general.

“Oh, quit glaring at me, Drew,” says Jay, as if Drew’s being unreasonable in doing so. “Go clean yourself up, you’re a mess.”

Drew doesn’t get a chance to give him a particularly scathing response, because Liam walks out at that precise moment. Tristan’s face softens when he sees him, and the state he’s in – Drew almost vibrates with self-consciousness.

“Drew,” he says, gently, “You didn’t get here too late. He’s only just gotten through all his tests and gotten settled in. He’s alright – he hasn’t done any majordamage, but he wasunconscious for about ten minutes and has a pretty nasty concussion. The amnesia’s fading, at least.” At Drew’s expression, which he figures is some variety of concerned and alarmed, he says “It seems he hit his head quite hard.” He almost looks amused.

Drew just nods, unable to think of anything to say.

“Liam and I’ve been here since morning, so we’re going to go get a coffee - you can go in and see him if you like.” Tristan looks vaguely apologetic. “We’re only allowed one at a time.”

“Well, we won’t be long,” says Liam, with a nod and smile at Drew, “He might still be a little out of it, but he seems pretty aware of who and where he is now, at least.”

//

“You look wrong,” is the first thing Jake says. His words slur a little, running into one another at the edges.

Drew takes stock of him – head bandaged with blood still very clearly oozing through the gauze, pale, pupils blown out, covered in grazes.

“Thanks,” he says, dryly.

“All prickly,” Jake continues, like Drew hasn’t said anything, “Prickly and sad.”

“You’re an idiot,” Drew says, not without affection.

Jake’s eyes widen, slow, confused. “You’ve been crying.”

“You’re an idiot,” Drew says again, neatly, because he’s not sure if Jake appreciates that fact as much as he should.

“What?”

Drew considers making some passive-aggressive comment about the thickness of his skull, and how lucky they all are for it. He doesn’t. “Never mind,” he says, “What happened?”

Jake has to think about it. For a good minute.

“I was standing,” Jake says, his speech slow, like he has to think about every syllable, “Someone did a cannonball, so I went over. And then I woke up in an ambulance.” He looks nauseated, perhaps a little terrified. “And there was blood everywhere. I think it was my blood.”

So he hadn’t been conscious for the whole almost-drowning deal. Good, Drew supposes.

“How are you feeling?” Drew asks.

“Uh,” Jake says, eyes distant, lost, “Okay, I guess. My head hurts. And my ears are ringing. And I…” He trails off, tilting his head. “Seeing stars. Sometimes. You know.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Drew, with a nod, dead serious.

Then Jake bursts out laughing.Drew feels a peculiar tightness in his chest.

Jake, still laughing softly, raises his head. It just so happens he makes eye contact with Drew, who is staring at him, which is completely normal for this situation. His smile drops a little, and they stare at each other for a good half a minute.

“Drew,” says Jake, and Drew is suddenly aware of his own heartbeat, “I’m really sorry I made you cry.”

“It’s okay,” Drew finds himself saying, a little gruffly, “It wasn’t you, exactly. More the… situation.”

“So sweet,” Jake sighs.

Drew is prettysure that is the first time in his entire life that anyone’s ever called him sweet. “Um,” he says, “Okay.”

“Can I tell you a secret,Drew?” Jake says, his voice soft in a theatrical way.

Oh god. Punchdrunk Jake is clearly just as dangerous and terrifying as Shay is.

“Yeah,” says Drew, because what elsecan he say to that? Deny him? He’s not thatmuch of an asshole.

He immediately regrets his decision when Jake pats the narrow space on the bed beside his shoulder.

Oh god, no.

“I’m good over here,” Drew says, quickly, “I. Don’t want to overcrowd you.”

“Dreeew,”whines Jake, he actually whines,like Drew’s wounded him irreparably, like he’s a child,“Please?”

Drew finds himself wishing he’d just stayed in the fucking bed.

Throat tight, he walks over to the bed, sitting with a tense gingerness down beside Jake, the stiff mattress creaking beneath him as he does. Jake gives him a placated smile. Drew feels a peculiar urge to jump out the window.

“Okay,” says Drew, “What’s the secret?”

His heart jumps into his throat when Jake begins to lean over to him.

“No, that’s okay, I can hea-” is Drew’s lame attempt at interjection, but sadly for him, Jake just proceeds to completely ignore him, getting closer and closer until-

Right,Drew thinks, his pulse flipping out, going absolutely fucking haywire, Right. No depth perception. He’s severely concussed. He’s not doing it on purpose.

That’s just the feeling of Jake’s lips brushing against his ear. That’s fine. That’s fine. Not a big deal. Drew’s coping with it just fine.

“I feel really bad, Drew,” Jake whispers, and Drew can feel every single letterpassing through Jake’s lips, because they play out directly against his ear,“But I think you’re so prettywhen you cry.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

“Haha…” Drew says, his voice weak, like he’s the one who’s just sustained a severe head injury.

“But like,” Jake continues, apparently oblivious to the fact that Drew’s probably on the verge of death or something, “All the time.”

“What?” says Drew, his heart racing.

“You’re pretty all the time,” Jake clarifies, kindly, lips still whispering against Drew’s ear.

Drew can’t find words. Drew can’t even breathe,let alone speak.

“Sorry,” Jake murmurs.

Drew, as if in a dream, turns his head, so that they’re face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Drew is distinctly aware of how darkJake’s eyes are, pupils dilated with a thin ring of brown around them – the feel of his own heartbeat, thrumming hard and fast through his veins- the distant sound of an engine revving, out in the parking lot-

“Jake,” he says, voice shaking, “You-”

Footsteps, and Drew jumps up, a reflex,and is distantly aware of how hardhis hands are shaking. Tristan pops his head into the room, with a genial, “How’s it all going?”

Your son just told me I’m pretty all the time,Drew wants to say.

“I’m really thirsty,” he blurts out instead, “Excuse me,” and then he’s gone from the room without even looking back.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Jay demands, “To cry in the bathroom?”

“Look, James,” snaps Laura, rounding on him – Drew notices that she’s shouldering a giant white cat plush, bought probably for Jake as a get well soon gift, which makes it pretty hard to take her seriously, if Drew’s being honest, “You can’t just keep-”

“Oh, don’t be so patronising,” Jay groans, rolling his eyes.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Drew announces abruptly, setting off for the hallway, the bathroom, anywhere but here.

As he rounds the corner, he hears Jay demand, “What is withhim lately?”

//

For once in his life, Drew gets into bed the second he gets home. He’d needed a good twenty minutes alone in a bathroom stall, standing perfectly still and staring straight ahead, to recover from The Incident. After that he’d waited at the hospital until a nurse had pointedly advised him that visiting hours were over – the others were long gone by that point, having mostly dispersed after Jake had been presented with the cat plushie, apparently to enthusiastic, if dazed, response. Drew had responded to the nurse by basically saying he didn’t care, to which the nurse had responded by basically threatening to call security on him, which was probably good timing, given the fact that the Paynes were leaving, too.

“We’re just keeping him overnight for observation,” the nurse had informed Jake’s parents, giving Drew a wary look, “He’s looking good, but the doctor just wants to make sure nothing comes up in the next twenty-four hours, just in case. With any luck, he’ll be out by tomorrow.” She completed this with a sweet smile, as if she wasn’t probably the rudest and most obstructive person in the whole hospital.

Drew had been mostly silent the ride home, thankful that Jake’s parents were half too tired to try to chat, half knew exactly that Drew wasn’t in the mood to talk. He’d stared out the window at the darkly burning lights of passing cars and buildings, idly noticing how elevated his breathing had become. How often he caught his fingers coming up to rub his ear.

“Thank you for waiting with us for so long, Drew,” Liam eventually says, twisting around to offer him a smile, when he’s pulled up at their street, in front of the Morgan’s. “We’ll let you know when we hear something.”

“No trouble,” Drew says, undoing his seatbelt, “Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re a good friend, Drew,” Tristan says, his voice soft, wistful – he can see the please don’t worryin his dark eyes - “Good night.”

Actually, Drew thinks, as he opens the door and exits out into the night, he’s pretty much the worstfriend – because he’s spent the entire car ride home replaying Jake whispering in his ear on an endless loop, and thinking about how being called pretty makes him feel, about how being called pretty by Jakemakes him feel, and has kind of realised, with a slow, final acceptance, that he likedit, and that if Jake hadn’t been concussed, maybe he-

 “Okay,” Drew finds himself saying, somewhat desperately, because somehow, he doesn’t even remembergetting up the stairs and inside – as far as he can tell, he was outside the car one minute, on his back on the bed with a little problem in his pants in the next. “Okay. Okay. Just. Calm down.”

He isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or his erection. Probably both.

The fact that it happens to be over his best friend whispering how pretty he thinks he is directly in his ear is probably pretty telling. He stares up at the ceiling for a moment, dizzy from the rush of, well, everythingclicking into place.

He lets out a long, ragged sigh, turning his face into his pillow.

Drew thinks he should probably be concerned about remembering Jake’s lips at his ear, imagining him saying different things.

He wonders what it would be like to kiss Jake, to feel those lips on his.

And then he thinks, fuck it, because thisisn’t going away – Drew’s kind of realised that this,whatever it is, he’s never been much good with words and this isn’t any different, except it isdifferent, because he thinks, maybe, that this has alwaysbeen there, and he just hasn’t been able to make sense of it until now.

Drew, feeling ridiculous and a little ashamed but also probably more turned on than he’s ever been in his entire life, rolls onto his side, sweat cooling against his skin, and all he can think about is kissing Jake.

Well, then.

//

Drew takes a fortifying shower, and then he bites the bullet and makes himself do it, as unpleasant as it is, as he knows it’s going to be.

so. i probably have feelings for Jake.

Drew counts exactly four seconds before he gets a text back. Shay is sometimes worse than Sassy and James combined, and it’s beyond him.

OMFG DREW WAIT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON’T GO ANYWHERE. NO RUNNING AWAY OR LOCKING THE DOOR OR ANYTHING. JUST STAY THERE. WE’LL BE RIGHT OVER.

One second. Two.

DO YOU NEED SOMETHING TO DRINK????

no,texts Drew, thanks.

How Laura and Shay manage to get there in less than 20 minutes, Drew doesn’t quite understand – it bends all the rules of the time-space continuum and public transport timetabling, but he guesses there’s not really much point questioning it.

Drew doesn’t even get in so much as a ‘hello’ when he opens his door, after his doorbell is rung approximately thirty-six times.

“Finally,”says Shay, her eyes glittering in a way that’s almost devious.

“What do you mean, ‘finally’?” Drew demands, bristling.

As if he isn’t even there in front of her, Shay turns to Laura, grabbing her sleeve and tugging excitedly. Laura only tenses up a little, to her credit. “It’s here, Lau,” she breathes, “The time is upon us.”

“There is no ‘time’-” Drew says, attempting to derail the train of theatrics before it begins.

“Do you even know,” Shay says, “How longwe’ve all been waiting for you to realise?”

“…Who is ‘we’?” asks Drew, vague nausea sweeping over him.

Shay leans forward. “Everyone,”she says, “Literally everyone. Maybe in the whole world.”

The nausea goes from vague to worrying. Drew turns to Laura, who has kindly been averting her eyes. “Were youcomplicit in this?”

Laura clears her throat. “In a manner of speaking,” she says. Drew just looks at her, trying very hard to be gentle and not give her a death stare, because he knows Laura wouldn’t be able to handle it. Laura bristles. “I didn’t participate in the betting pool, at the very least!” she protests.

“Betting pool,” Drew repeats, levelling a death stare at Shay. This, he is not worried about – he knows it will roll straight off Shay’s back. “No. Why am I even surprised?”

“Listen, Drew,” Shay says, “Be reasonable.”

“I ambeing reasonable.” He isn’t yellingat Shay for being a meddling snoop, after all.

“Why notprofit from it, when it was obvious it was happening the second new Andy showed up on the scene-”

“There isno new Andy,” Drew snaps.

“But Drew,” says Shay, doe-eyed, “Why so defensive? I thought you hatedthat nickname.”

Drew is rarely speechless, when it’s not by choice – silent, yes, speechless, no. This is one of those times. To make matters worse, he’s prettysure the sudden hand over Laura’s mouth is covering a smile.

He’s probably staring like an idiot. He should probably do something about that.

“You should probably,” Drew says, grudgingly, “Come inside.”

“Thank you, Andrew,” says Laura, polite as ever.

Shay, as impolite as ever, grabs onto Drew’s shirt, tugging at it frantically with each word – she’d probably jump up and force Drew to give her a kiss, if she didn’t know Drew would push her off. “What happened, Drew? When did you figure it out?”

Drew thinks about it. He reallydoesn’t want to be facing Shay when he says it.

“Today in the hospital,” he says, making quick business of it, “He. Apologised for upsetting me. And then said he thinks I’m… pretty… when I cry. But also all the time.”

There’s dead silence.

Shay lets out a low whistle. “Jake Payne,” she breathes, “You sly fox.”

“Yeah,” Drew says, “That sly, concussed fox.”

“No, Drew, you don’t get it,” Shay insists, sitting herself down on the arm of the couch instead of the couch itself, “Jake was brilliant. He totally playedyou with the whole vulnerability act.”

Drew arches an eyebrow at her. “He had a severe concussion,” he reminds Shay, “He was unconscious for ten minutes.I don’t think Jake was playing anyone.”

“Like a Game Boy,”Shay says, staring wide-eyed at Drew.

Drew decides he’s no longer going to dignify this thread of conversation with any sort of reasonable response.

“What are you going to do, Andrew?” Laura asks, clearly as desperate as Drew to bring this conversation back to reality.

“Tell him,” Drew says, “I guess.”

“Oh,” says Laura, with a nod of approval, “That doessimplify things.”

Drew stares at her. Laura reddens slightly.

“What you need,” says Shay, eyes sparkling, because clearly thirty seconds of silence is unacceptable for her, “Is something right off from a movie.”

”No,“ says Drew, instantaneously.

"Preferably a musical.” As though Drew hasn’t spoken. As though there is a chance in fresh hellof this transpiring.

“No, Shay.”

“I don’t believe Andrew is that good with singing, to be honest,” Laura replies – as though that’sthe real issue here.

Shay, Drew thinks, is a completely terrible influence. “No,”he grits out, frustrated beyond all belief, “No musicals.”

“Do you want to make a love confession to Jake or not?” Shay asks, looking impatient.

“Not exactly-”

Shay holds up a hand. “Let me rephrase. Do you want to tell Jake how you feel or not?”

“… Yes,” says Drew, grudgingly.

Shay nods. “Uh-huh,” she says, “Okay. And which of us here has made a love confession previously?”

“It’s not a-we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you hadn’t,” Drew says, wishing they weren’t having this conversation at all, all of a sudden.

“Then maybe you should listen to us,” Shay says, and she can be so damn condescendingwhen she wants to be.

“What did you two do?” Drew demands, hand balling into a fist at his side.

Laura and Shay exchange perplexed glances.

“I brought Shay a strawberry cake-”

“We watched a movie with lots of half-naked men,” Shay cuts in, “Then Laura kissed me. Then she had a panic attack. And then we got a little touchy-feely on the bed.”

Drew stares at them, stomach heavy, for what is probably close to a full minute.

“That,” he says, “Sounds terrible.”

“Hey,” Shay looks miffed, “It was awesome.”

“Okay,” says Drew, “It was awesome. So I don’tneed to sing, is what you’re saying.”

“That is not what I said at all, Drew,” says Shay, archly.

“But it isoptional,” Drew presses, wondering how he’s let himself even begin to have this conversation.

“Well, that depends, Drew,” Shay says, “Do you want it to just be awesome, or do you want to learn from mine and Laura’s mistakes and make it hellaawesome?”

Sometimes, Drew makes the mistake of forgetting that Shay’s form of logic doesn’t necessarily correspond with that of a reasonable, sane human being. “I’ll settle for just plain awesome, I think.”

Shay looks at him with a pity so deep Drew is almost moved by it. “You’re a fool, Drew.”

Oh yes, Drew thinks, feeling a little defeated - he is.

Then his phone dings, heralding a message from Jay, which reads, Hey mr too hot, you looked sadder than usual today. Wanna come have a few drinks and have some fun for once in your life?,and Drew thinks that he pretty much hates his friends.

 //

Drew must still be half-asleep when he does it – that or he’s actually losing it. All he knows is that he suddenly has his phone pressed to his ear, and-

“What?”Jay growls, sounding pretty much like death.

“I need to talk to you,” says Drew, before he even knows what he’s saying, followed by the immediate urge to punch himself in the face.

There’s a pause. “Drew? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re actually calling me?”

“Yes.”

There’s another pause.

“You know what? You can fuck right off.” Jay sounds petulant beyond belief.

Drew rolls his eyes. “Is this because I didn’t come to your party?”

“It’s because you didn’t even replyto my message,you rude dick-”

“Look,” Drew interrupts, eager to derail the grief train before it really gets a chance to get rolling, “I’m sorry. I’ll come to the next one.”

“Like actual fuck.”

“Jay,” Drew says, his voice wavering a little.

Jay pauses, clearly picking up on it.

“It’s important,” Drew continues.

Another pause.

“Ugh. Fine,”Jay snaps, and Drew can hear the sound of blankets shifting in the background, “I’m not getting out of bed for you, though.”

Fine by Drew.

Drew is then confronted with the arduous task of gently, yet assertively, kicking Laura and Shay out, who had passed out in the guest room.

“I have things to do,” he explains, when Shay protests, loudly.

„You’re gonna wake up the whole house.” Drew reminds her.

“Sorry” She whisper-shouts, before continuing, ”But like wh- oooooh.Things,”Shay says, with a knowing wink. Drew resists the urge to roll his eyes, which is probably a good thing, because it means he’s better prepared when Shay launches herself bodily at him in one of her enthusiastic, but far too aggressive hugs.

“You need to warnpeople before you do that,” he gripes, but he hugs Shay back anyway, which just makes her let out a delighted squeak and bury her face against Drew’s chest. “Alright. Okay. That’s enough.” Shay doesn’t move. “Shay.”

“Go get ‘im, Drew,” Shay says fiercely, like Drew’s about to go off to war, or something. She does let him go after that, though, for which Drew is incredibly thankful.

He turns to Laura, silently letting her know that if she’d like to say anything, words of wisdom, encouragement, now would be the time.

Laura shifts a little, awkward. She clears her throat. Places a stiff, halting hand on Drew’s shoulder.

“You’ve got this, Andrew,” she says, clearly apprehensive.

Drew just stares at her, as she casts a nervous glance of Shay, who nods in approval.

He sighs.

“Oh, alright,” he says, holding an arm out for Laura.

Laura stares at him in disbelief.

“Come on, then,” Drew says, because he reallydoesn’t have all day.

What follows is possibly the most awkward, yet comfortingly conscious of personal space hug Drew has ever received in his life. Drew isn’t quite sure how he feels about it, but he does kind of feel like he and Laura have crossed a frontier. Or something. Even if he doescatch Shay criticising Laura heavily for her subpar hug game as the pair of them head out the door.

Drew closes the door behind them, now confronted with the dire prospect of a long-long walk to the McLahey household.

//

As it happens, PJ is the one to let him in, because he’s just heading out, so Jay, true to his word, doesn’t even have to get out of bed.

“Oh, try to speak softly,” PJ advises him, after they’ve exchanged hellos, “Jay is,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “Fragilethis morning.”

“I fucking heard that, PJ!” Jay grouches from somewhere inside – Drew can’t actually see him under the pile of blankets in the room beside PJ’s shoulder, but he doessee a pillow go flying across the room, missing PJ by a good metre.

PJ smiles indulgently. “Good luck,” he tells Drew, before setting off.

Drew suspects he’ll probably need it.

“So what ‘important’business brings you here at the crack of fuck off o’clock on a Sunday morning?” is the first thing Jay says when Drew gets through the door of his room. The sheet is abruptly pulled up to cover his head. Drew is well-aware that Jay tries to hide something behind the rough language, but he doesn’t ask. He never does.

Drew gives the alarm clock on his desk a sidelong glance. “It’s ten AM.”

“Well, Drew,” Jay says, in that faux shade of pleasant that generally means Jay’s thinking about how desperately he wants to punch Drew in the face for some transgression or another, “Maybe if you actually got off your ass and left your house long enough to come to the many parties I invite you to, you would understand. Maybe meet some people. Maybe get close to someone. Have an actual conversation-”

“You’re hungover,” Drew observes.

“Yes, you genius,” grits out Jay, “I’m hungover.”

“Self-inflicted.” Drew has no sympathy for him.

“And when I roll over and spite puke on you,that will alsobe self-inflicted.” Drew hears the distinct rustle of a body trying to worm its way so deep into the sheets it might be trying to disappear- he knows the sound because on Saturday mornings Jake often tries to-

No,he admonishes himself, because he’s here on business.

“I.” He swallows. “Need your advice.”

There is a long, agonising pause. Drew takes the opportunity to shrug off his bag, settling down to sit on Jay’s chair at his desk, which is full of open books and a random assortment of trash, books, and, bizarrely, a broken slinky.

Eventually, Jay twists around to peer at him from under the sheet, eyes suspicious. “You need my advice,” he repeats, “You. Andrew Morgan.”

Drew will give him exactly nothing more than he needs to. “Yes,” he says, simply.

Jay grins. “Hah,”he almost giggles, the glee in his voice searing as he pulls himself into a sitting position, “I knewthis day would come. “

Drew successfully avoids rolling his eyes and covering his face in the nick of time. He needs Jay to play nice with him, if he’s going to get anywhere.

Then the glee recedes, abruptly. Jay squints at him. “Bullshit,” he says, much to Drew’s surprise, “When do you evercome to me?”

“Are you going to hear me out or not?” Drew asks him, feeling the thin string of his patience wearing thin.

“… You’re serious,” Jay says, after a moment, realisation and something like concern crossing his face, “This is major.”

“… I guess.”

Jay stares at him. “Did you knock someone up?” he asks.

“What-no.Why would you-” He breaks off with a splutter, because, oh, if only Jay knew.

“Did you catch something?” Jay presses on, brow creasing, “Because I mean, Ican’t help with that, but I have it on good authority that Dylan-”

“You’re fucking with me,”Drew snaps, annoyed at himself, because of courseJay’s fucking with him.

“No, but if you really want to-” Jay fires back, and when Drew reveals a Look, he rephrases “I’m trying to lighten the mood-”

“I don’t needyou to lighten the mood-”

“You, especially you, alwaysneed someone to lighten the mood-”

“I will go home,” Drew breaks in, “Right now.”

Jay pauses, giving him a long, steely look. “Oh, alright,” he sighs, like he’s doing Drew an enormous favour, “Let’s hear it, then.” He nods at Drew –proceed– before leaning down with a wince and reaching for the water bottle standing upright next to his bed.

Well, Drew supposes – here it is. He takes a breath.

“Are you fucking blushing?” Jay demands, popping the top on his water bottle, looking faintly aghast.

“No.” Drew doesn’t blush. Everyone knows that.

“You are,” Jay insists, “It’s that or it’s sunburn, and you definitely weren’t sunburned when you came in-”

“Jay.” The yarn of his patience, wearing down to its last thread.

Jay takes a swig of his water, arching an eyebrow at him, as if to say, hurry the fuck up, then-as if he hasn’t been dutifully interrupting Drew this whole time.

“How do you tell someone you like them?” Like ripping off a band-aid. Terrible, agonising, worth it in the long run. He hopes.

Jay chokes. Spectacularly. Water splutters from between his lips, and he drops the bottle as he doubles over, settling in for a fit of desperate, racking coughs. Drew lets him suffer for a moment before picking himself up and wandering over to thump him on the back.

“I see now,” Jay spits out when he’s recovered, chest heaving, trembling, “You came here to fucking murderme-”

“I came here for your advice,” Drew insists, starting to feel rather cross.

“Who?” Jay demands. His eyes are bloodshot – he could almost be crying, if Drew didn’t know any better.

“Seriously?”

It takes a second – Jay’s face flickers with confusion for a moment longer.

Then the laughter begins. Drew bites his tongue, waiting for it to stop. It doesn’t. It keeps going, until Jay doubles over and covers his face with both hands, until Drew goes from annoyed and impatient to mildly concerned that Jay might be in throes of a nervous breakdown.

Just as Drew is about to lean forward and ask if he maybe needs to call someone, Sam, maybe, or a licensed mental health professional, Jay raises his head, his eyes glimmering with tears, almost-giggles tapering from his lips.

“You good?” Drew asks, impatiently.

“Am I good,”repeats Jay, almost scathingly, swiping at an eye with the back of his hand, “I’m fuckingincredible.”

“Alright,” says Drew, unsure if he believes him or not, leaning towards not.

“Did you seriouslycome here to ask me my advice on how to get into Jake’spants?”

No,Drew thinks, idly, because that’s not exactly the immediategoal.

“Me?!”Jay is meanwhile continuing, looking and sounding completely dumbstruck and perhaps a little offended, “You’reasking me?”

“It was more in a generalsense,” Drew says defensively, and almost asks why it’s such a big deal, but Jay is apparently a little fragile at the moment, and so he thinks better of it.

“Because, like,” Jay continues, eyes flashing, “Have you forgotten who you are?”

“No,” says Drew, puzzled, beginning to regret his decision, and in fact doubt that Jay ever had any valuable advice to offer him in the first place.

“Oh, c’mon, Drew,” Jay says, looking mock-chastised – Drew doesn’t believe it for a second, “Don’t look at me like you want to choke me. You really wanna know what I think you should do?”

“Yes,” Drew replies, wondering if he should brace himself.

As it turns out, he should’ve – Jay smirks at him like he’s dinner before raising a closed fist to sit in the air beside his jaw, jerking it back in forth as he presses his tongue in and out the hollow of his cheek, so that Drew can see the outline – completely, entirely lewd and evocative of, well- And Drew just stares, mortified.

„I mean it should give him the idea-”

“Goodbye,” Drew says, neatly, collecting his bag and standing up, heading for the door, because he’s had enough.

“Drew-!”Jay jeers after him, but Drew has absolutely nointention of sticking around – he doesn’t care if it didtake him like an hour to get there.

 //

“Drew!” Sam sounds supremely admonishing – Drew didn’t even get a hello. “You are ruiningmy weekend away with my father.”

“How?” Drew questions, wondering what he could’ve possibly done to ruin his trip with Logan that he could know about, given that he’s about a hundred miles away.

“I got a call from my brother this morning,” Sam says, and Drew’s heart sinks, because oh,“You can probably guess what it was about.”

“Indulge me,” Drew sighs, raking a hand through his hair.

“Why the hell,”Sam says, sounding as if he’s in the very throes of utmost despair, “Did you go to my brotherfor romantic advice?”

Drew covers his eyes with a hand. Great. Thanks, Jay. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gone bitching to Jakeabout it. He wanders over to the lounge, sitting himself down. “He seemed like he’d give good advice.” Jay did go out and flirt a lot, Drew knows that for a fact. However, now he understands that ‘seemed’ is the operative word in that statement.

Sam heaves a sigh, and it’s critical, almost annoyed. “You can be so cruel!” he says.

“Cruel?” Drew repeats, nonplussed.

There’s a lengthy pause on the other end of the line. Drew has to check to make sure the call hasn’t dropped out. “Ah,” Sam says, after a moment, his voice wavering, like it’s surprised.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says, sounding faintly impatient.

“Alright,” Drew says, like he has even the slightest idea what he’s talking about. He has a vague sense that he might have missed something significant, but Sammy doesn’t seem interested in explaining, the aggression in his tone making way for thoughtfulness.

“So,” he says, a little slyly, “Jake, huh?”

“Of course Jay told you,” sighs Drew.

Sam lets out a giggle. “Drew,” he says, almost gently, “No offense, but he didn’t haveto.”

“Yeah,” Drew says, trying for off-handed, “I heard about the betting pool.”

“Did you hear that I won?” he says, sounding a little devious.

“Shay didn’t mention it, no.”

“Nothing in this world,” he says pleasantly, “Gives me greater pleasure than beating Shay at her own game.”

“Nothing?”Drew presses.

He can hearhim smirking. “Well,” he says, “Maybe there’s a handfulof things.”

Drew thinks he has a pretty fair idea of what those things might be. “How is it that everyone elseseems to have figured it out before I have?” Drew folds an impatient arm over his chest, glaring out at the window, because seriously.

“Lucky guess?” He tries.

Drew, were they face-to-face, would be giving him such a Look. He kind of thinks Sam picks up on the overall sentiment, though, because he sighs, though Drew can tell it’s around a smile. “You won’t like the real answer.”

“Try me,” says Drew.

Sam doesn’t miss a beat. “You’re ridiculously out of touch with your own feelings and sometimes can’t see what’s right in front of you,” he says, almost sweetly.

Fuck you,is Drew’s automatic, bristling response – but he isn’t Jay, and what’s more, he’s right,and so he bites his tongue.

“Fair,” he grumbles, “I guess.”

“For example, why do you think my brother freaked when you went for advice to him?” he questions, and here it is, Drew realises – the realpoint of the conversation.

Drew is suddenly reminded that Jay used to have a thing for him, too. Only now he’s not sure if he really just used to have that thing. He has no interest in god-forbid, changing things by asking though, so he firmly decides to ignore it. He doesn’t want to discuss the possible what ifs on this topic, especially not with Sam.

Sam realizes that, too. „Anyway,” he begins, in a slightly teasing tone, „Aren’t you gonna ask for my advice?”

“It sounds like you’re volunteering,” Drew replies, “So.”

Probably more helpful than Jay, anyway.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sam says, and Drew stops, feeling his eyes go wide, “Don’t run from it anymore. Just be honest. Do what feels right.”

At Drew’s extended silence and probable gaping, because for a moment he’s not even sure how to respond to the lack of sex or musical ballads or other unreasonable ideas, he continues hurriedly, “I mean, I know it’s probably obvious-”

“No,” Drew says, blinking, “It’s not that. It’s that you’re the only one who’s given me actualadvice.”

“… What did everyone else say?” he asks, sounding curious.

Drew clears his throat. “Shay and Laura’s plan involved something about singing and musicals,” he says, “And half-naked men. I made a point of not really listening.”

He snorts. “Typical. And my brother?”

Drew’s heart sinks, and he grimaces. “You don’t even want to know.”

“Ew, gross,”he groans.

Drew blinks. “I didn’t sayanything-”

“I can fill in the blanks,Drew,” he says, sounding faintly disappointed in his brother. “Anyway. Moving on from my gross brother.”

“Yes,” Drew concurs, heartily.

“How is Jake? I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. Jay said he hit his head pretty hard.”

Drew sincerely doubts that Jay phrased it exactly like that, but Sam is often kind enough to clean up his brother’s speech when he’s relaying it. “It’s okay,” Drew says, “He was pretty out of it, I’m not even sure how much he remembers.” Sam makes a sympathetic noise. “He’s probably getting out today.”

“Good!” Sam chirps. There’s a pause.

A thought occurs to Drew. “What ended up winning?”

“Excuse me?”

“The betting pool.”

“Oh,” Sam says, sounding amused, “That.Shay didn’t think either of you two would work up the nerve until at leastwinter. I told her she was an idiot, of course.”

“What did you say?” So he’s curious.

His answer makes him freeze, his breath catching in his throat. “I… I said it would be before the summer break starts,” he says, his voice softening, “It just seemed right, you know? With… you, and everything else that’s happened.”

Drew doesn’t really know what to say to that – but he does know he’s right.

“Yeah,” he says, “I guess.”

Before summer break starts,huh.

 //

Jake gets discharged later that afternoon – Tristan texts him from Jake’s phone, knowing it’s less obtrusive than a call – that he’s out and home and okay, though he did cry a little bit about the stitches (information that Tristan emphatically stated was notto be repeated). Drew is out the door thirty seconds later, practically taking the steps two at a time, ‘til he’s rapping at the Payne’s front door with an enthusiasm that is even he can admit is unusual for him. Liam answers it a moment later, his expression turns pained when he realises it’s him. “Oh, Drew,” he says, sounding apologetic, “I’m sorry, but Jake didn’t sleep at alllast night, and he reallyneeds to rest -”

Drew has been gradually intensifying the worried, agonised expression on his face, the entire time he’s been speaking. Liam pauses, giving him a critical look.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says, squinting at him, “Don’t think I don’t.”

“Five minutes?” Drew says, and then catching himself, lest him incinerate him with his eyes, “Please?”

“Andrew Morgan”he says, his voice severe, and Drew actually almost cringes back, “That business might work on my son-”

“I’ve been so worried,” Drew says, meaning it, though maybe not for the reasons Liam thinks, exactly, “I’ve missedhim.”

Silence. Liam looks faintly stunned for a long moment. Then, he sighs, looking up past the door frame and to the heavens. “Alright,” he says, “You’ve got ten minutes. Understood?”

“Understood,” says Drew, trying very hard not to crack a smile.

He doesn’t knock on Jake’s door, just turns the knob as quietly as he can, and slips into the dark room-

Which is notas dark as it should be if Jake’s sleeping, Drew thinks, realising that Jake’s decidedly awake, bespectacled face is illuminated by ghostly blue light for approximately two seconds before the figure on the bed jumpsand hurriedly shoves the glowing something under the blanket.

“Busted,” Drew says, neatly, keeping his voice quiet, closing the door behind him.

Jake breathes out a sigh of relief – the DS comes back out. “I thought you were Dad,” he says, reaching out to flick the lamp on. The room is bathed in soft, warm light – Drew pauses for a second, noticing for maybe the first time how it plays off the lines of Jake’s face, cheekbones, dark eyes.

“Obviously I’m not,” he says, hurriedly, before he can catch himself staring,“You lived long enough to hide it under the blanket in the first place.”

“Right?” Jake says, just a touch miserable. „It’s been like, two whole days, and my village is a mess.”

“Seriously, though, you should be resting.”

“But my game-” protests Jake, looking shattered.

Drew sighs – Jake and his games.“I’ll take care of it,” he says, holding his hand out for the handheld.

Jake looks taken aback. “You will?”

“Yeah,” Drew says, fighting the urge to roll his eyes, “If it’ll stop you stressing.”

Jake considers him for a moment. “Andbefriend the new people for me?”

“Really?” Drew asks, giving Jake a Look.

“This is importantto me-” whines Jake, eyes wounded.

“Alright, alright, fine,”Drew interrupts him, “I will befriend them for you.” He can scarcely believe the words coming out of his mouth, but then, Jake tends to have that kind of effect on him, more than anyone else. “Give me the game.”

Jake beams.Drew feels his knees threaten to buckle. Awesome.

He makes himself walk over to the bed so he can take the handheld from Jake.

“There are some cranky villagers,” Jake tells him, seriously, handing it over slowly, cautiously, like it’s his firstborn child, “So you need to-”

“I know how to befriend a cranky villager, Jake,” Drew breaks in, because he’s watched Jake do it more times than he cares to remember, “I know how they work.”

Jake is silent for a moment. Then he smiles, and it’s tinged with mischief. “Of course you do,” he says, “Silly me.”

Drew’s shoulders stiffen. “What’s thatsupposed to mean?”

“Nothing,”Jake says, deliberately, teasingly, far too teasing for someone who’s supposed to be wiped out after a brutal concussion.

“Whatever,” Drew says, pocketing the console. “How’re you feeling?”

Jake makes a face. “Better,” he says, “After not sleeping all night because all the weird beeping noises kept me awake, and the hospital bed was creaky, and the headache, and the eight stitches-”

“Stitches?” says Drew, remembering Tristan’s words, forcing an expression of mild surprise on his face.

Jake lets out a distraught moan. “They’re gross,”he says, brow furrowing as he pushes his hair out of his face, where it sticks up amusingly in every which direction, revealing a darkened red slash of wound intersected by eight perfect lines, running diagonally above his right eyebrow.

Drew hisses a breath through his teeth, more out of sympathy than anything else, knowing how Jake is petrifiedof needles, let alone having them rend right through his skin. Jake’s shoulders slump in response – he sighs.

“I know. I have to have them for ten days,”he says, “I’ll have to go to schoolwith them. I look so scary.”

Drew rolls his eyes. “You do not,” he says, because the suggestion is, quite frankly, a ridiculous one.

“Like a monster,”Jake continues to sulk, looking rather sullen.

Drew’s had enough of it. He reaches a hand out, smoothing Jake’s hair back down from the rest of his hair, ruffling them back into their shaggy, mussed, rightful place, being careful not to bump the wound. “There,” he says, even as his heart flutters in his chest, “You can’t even see them.”

He’s painfully aware of Jake staring at him. Drew is surprised, but only a little, at the lack of urge to tear his hand away. He lets it linger instead, long enough for Jake to let out this nervous little laugh and say, “Drew,” – just that, his name, and nothing more – before he lets his hand drop back to rest by his side.

Jake’s hair is soft, he realises, with a distant kind of giddiness. “You don’t,” Drew tells him, “Look like a monster.”

Jake looks amused,all of a sudden. “You say that,” he says, his voice teasing again, “But I doubt you’ll be drawing me when I’m like this.”

Drew’s heart is of course a complete dick about it and decides it’s going to jump into his throat so hard and fast he actually can’t speak, otherwise he knows he’ll choke. Fuck,he thinks, knowing for certain his shock is showing on his face.

Jake’s face falls a second later. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking shamefaced, “Should I not have-?”

“I could,” Drew interrupts, his version of nervous babbling, “I would.”

Jake blinks, looking about as half taken aback as Drew feels. “… Oh,” he says, lamely, and then they stare at each other for bit, just as lamely.

Jake was flirtingwith him. Jake flirts with him all the fucking time.How had he not noticed?

“Jake,” he says, wetting his lips, “How… how’s your memory?”

“…Huh?” Jake says, blinking again, clearly not expecting the question.

“Like… how much of yesterday do you remember?”

Drew is aware of his pulse. Drew is aware of his heartbeat, thundering in his ears. How dry his mouth is.

“Um,” Jake says, looking faintly embarrassed, “Not a lot. I guess I hit my head pretty hard.” He lets out another nervous laugh.

Drew’s heart sinks.He doesn’t remember the pretty thing. He doesn’t remember pressing his lips to Drew’s ear, whispering against them. He doesn’t remember,and things just got a whole lot more difficultfor Drew, because how,exactly, is he supposed to bring this up?

“Why do you ask?” Jake says, eyes lit with curiosity.

Drew just looks at him, for a moment.

Just be honest,Sam had told him, Do what feels right.

He swallows. “I,” he says.

The door opens, and Drew jumps,wheeling around, heart hammering in his chest, to find Liam in the dimly lit doorway, staring at him like he’s insane.

He probably is, come to think of it.

“Your, ah,” he says, haltingly, “Ten minutes are up.” He pauses, looking at Drew with no small amount of worry. “…Are you alright, Drew?”

“Fine,” Drew manages, “I’m fine. I’ll just be going now.” He shoots a quick look at Jake, who looks helplessly lost, and says, “I’ll see you at school. When you’re feeling better. Feel, um, better.”

“I… I will,” Jake says, looking faintly concerned, “Thanks for coming to see me.”

“No problem,” Drew forces out, letting Liam walk him out.

“Are you sureyou’re alright?” he asks, when they safely make it to the front door without Drew dying of embarrassement.

Drew finds himself nodding rapidly. “Just tired,” he says, and just by his expression, he knows he doesn’t buy it.

“Alright,” he says, looking doubtful, “Let me know if I can do anything.”

Drew wants to laugh. He really does.

“Thank you,” he says, “Good night.”

When he gets home, instead of going straight to bed and closing off this terrible, frustrating day, he checks his phone, like the idiot he apparently is.

Drew! Hope it’s all going well with you-know-who!!

I am just enquiring as to how you are, Andrew.

DREW have you told him yet????????????? deets Drew deets. have you kissed him??????? you two are SO CUTE omg <3 <3 <3

Have you sucked his dick yet? xo

Tomorrow, he swears to himself, he is putting his phone in the garbage, but not before taking the battery out and throwing it into the ocean, as hard as he possibly can.

He strips down to his boxers and rolls unceremoniously into bed, pulling the covers over his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

His eyes snap wide open after a moment.

“Fuck,”he breathes, “The village.”

And that’s how Drew ends up sitting awake ‘til two in the morning, dutifully uprooting all the mess that’s sprung up in Jake’s village in the game, and befriending grumpy neighbours.

The things he does for l-

For Jake.

//

“But why not, Drew?” Shay cries, gripping her hair in utter despair.

Drew rolls his eyes. “Because he came home and went straight to bed,” he lies, because he is notrelaying the actualevents of last night to the rest of them, no way in hell,“In case you’d forgotten about the whole concussion thing.”

Shay lets out a long, drawn out moan, very nearly smashing her head into Laura’s arm – Laura pets her hair absently, not even looking up from her book. “The suspense is killing me,”she groans.

“That must be terrible for you, Shay,” Drew says crisply.

Sam lightly punches Shay in the arm – Shay yowls. “Quit being selfish,Shay,” he says, “This isn’t about you. Look how tiredDrew looks – he must’ve been up all night worrying.”He gives him a sympathetic look.

Yeah, Drew thinks, Worrrying. Notgiving himself a bad case of sleep deprivation by making sure Jake’s village was pristine beyond reason and making friends with those stupid asshole characters. He almost has some resentful thought about how he hopesJake will be thankful, but of course, Jake willbe – Jake’s eyes will light up and he will beambrightly and say ‘Drew!’in that wondering, joyous voice of his and probably touch Drew’s arm and-

He almost buries his face in his hands, almost,but that would be showing weakness, and the rest of them are clearly out for blood at this present moment – in the nicest possible way, yes, but the fact remains that Drew, really, doesn’t want to talk about it.

His phone, still, for some reason that he can’t quite work out, functional, buzzes in his pocket – and that’s his othermajor source of irritation today. He checks it on the off-chance that it’s Jake, checking in on his town, or expressing concern for his general well-being, perhaps.

I’m starting to think you’re ignoring me. Which means you’re dodging the question. Which means you haven’t done it.

Jay, apparently, has decided to make up for the fact that he’s a year ahead of them and so he can’t hang around them at lunch, meaning he won’t be able to harass Drew in personby texting him a couple of times every hour, asking whether or not Drew has followed through with this advice.

He must shudder, or express some other physical sign of mortification, because Shay is on it like a hawk.

“Who was that, Drew?” she demands.

“No one,” says Drew, immediately, and at Shay’s unimpressed look, he sighs and admits, “Just Jay.”

“Ah, Jay’s worried about you, too!” Shay exclaims, as if this is supposed to move Drew into just leaving school at this present moment to go to Jake’s house and declare his feelings on the spot.

“’Worried’ is not the word I’d use,” Drew says, refusing to say anything else on the matter.

Which becomes increasingly difficult as the day wears on because Jay won’t stoptextinghim. All day. It reaches a point where, on the way home from school, he gets a text with a link to ‘a helpful guide xo’, and then as he’s walking in through his front door, a link to a ‘helpful video xo’.

Drew just stares at the message for a good minute, before trashing it, deeply regretting ever saying anything to Jay in the first place.

“I can’t fucking believeth-”he’s in the middle of griping as he slips his phone back into his pocket, at which point it promptly rings, and that’s it ,that’s fuckingit-

“One. More.Word,”he hisses directly into the phone, “About blowjobs, Jay, and I-”

“Um,” Jake’s voice says, sounding taken aback, possibly scandalised, “Hi.”

Drew stares at the wall ahead of him for what he thinks is probably a long time – he can’t really say for sure, though, because he thinks he might’ve gone into shock.

“Hi,” he manages, eventually, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jake says again, and this is just impossiblyawkward.

“… How are you feeling?” Drew asks, desperately hoping that Jake will just go with it and they can both move on from the incredibly awkward opening to this conversation and oh god he’s going to killJay.

“Ah,” Jake says, sounding a little uncertain, “Better. Much. Thank you.” Silence. “Is this a bad time? Were… you expecting a call from somebody else?”

“No,” Drew says, feeling desperate, “No.It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Jake sounds doubtful. “Um. How are you?”

“Fine,” Drew says, even if he’s currently the exact opposite of fine.

“Oh. Good. That’s good.” Another pause. “Um. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back at school tomorrow. Because I’m feeling better. And all.”

Drew’s heart soars, a little. He can’t help it.

“The teachers will be happy,” is the first thing out of his mouth.

What?

Jake doesn’t say anything.

“You know,” Drew hears himself saying, hastily, “Because you’ve missed so many classes.”

“Yeah,” Jake says, “I guess I have.”

Another long, drawn-out silence. Drew considers drowning himself the second the conversation is over.

“I’ll bring your game,” says Drew, “I. Cleaned up the town.”

“Oh,” says Jake, “Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

“So.” Jake clears his throat. “I guess… I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

“Yeah,” Drew says again, “I guess you will.”

He almost says I missed you today.He doesn’t.

“Well,” Jake says, still sounding lost, awkward, “Bye, Drew.”

“Bye.”

Drew hurls his phone at the couch the second the line goes dead –it bounces off with the most satisfying thud and goes crashing, lifeless, to the floor.

“’The teachers will be happy’,” he says aloud, storming into the kitchen, “They will be fucking happy,won’t they?” He snatches the frying pan off the drying rack, almost losing his hold on it and sending it flying clear across the room. He sets it down onto the counter instead, not even knowing what he’s doing anymore. “You cleaned up the fucking town, did you?”he snaps, kneeling town to search through the freezer for his emergency ice cream, “You fucking idiot.”

His brothers arrive home exactly like 5 minutes after the incident. At least no one was there to hearhim make a blunder of that entire conversation when it happened – no one except Jake, of course.

Maybe he should just write him a letter, Drew thinks, darkly, mouth full of ice cream, because he clearlyisn’t capable of having the conversation.

His phone vibrates with a message. Drew, absent-mindedly, picks it up, regretting it the instant he sees who it’s from.

You’re being so childish right now.

shut,he texts back, the fuck up.

Wow, who pissed inyourlunch?

you did.

Listen, Drew. I know you’re frustrated, but it’s not my fault you haven’t gotten your shit together and sucked his dick yet. Let’s just get that straight.

A pause, and then, with a jaunty buzz of vibration, Hahaha, straight!

And Drew’s not going to respond to that. He just isn’t.

What he doesend up doing is lying on his bed, clearing around Jake’s town again.

This, he thinks, is probably a sign of madness. An oddly soothing one, but a sign of madness nonetheless.

 //

Drew, predictably, wakes up as the sun breaks through the blinds he’d forgotten to close last night, game console still lying, open and on, in his hand. He feels the seasick lurch of sleep deprivation, surging in his gut, because he couldn’t have gotten more than two hours. He doesn’t allow himself time to reflect on how emotions, despite what everyone else had told him, are a waste of time – are, in actual fact, ruininghis life - he just dutifully saves the game, rolls out of bed, and drags himself over to the bathroom, only to go straight back to bed once he’s done.

He needs to do something, he thinks miserably, as he pulls the blanket over his head. He can’t keep doingthis – not being able to talk to Jake like a normal human being, struggling through late nights, instead of dealing with-

The situation.

He lets out the smallest of tortured moans. It might rain today. He kind of hopes it does.

Drew wishes that there was an easy way of doing it, but he’s never been much good with words – doesn’t even know what to call this, this feeling that makes him lose time and control, unsettles him, makes him feel warm,almost, warm shallows, where sunlight bleaches the cold away and glitters off the surface, where he can see through to the sandy ocean floor below him like he’s looking through glass.

If only he could just sayit.

He thinks about that, saying it, taking what he feels and making it so that Jake can understand it, until he loses the feel of the world around him- until he almost falls back to sleep-

Until he hears the front door open from the distant land of downstairs, and he hears Jake greeting his dads, then Jake’s footsteps, ascending the staircase-

Until Jake walks into the room, and smiles at him, like he does, every time they meet again, and extends his hand to Drew, in attempt to pull him out of bed, like he pretty much always does when Drew’s just too done with everything-

Until Drew’s staring up at him, Jake, with his warm honest eyes, with his stitches peeking out from beneath his bangs, and Drew realises that he never even had to thinkabout what he’d need to say to make Jake understand, because Jake would understand, anyway, because that’s what Jake does.

Drew takes his hand. Drew doesn’t get up from the bed when he’s pulled – only tightens his grip.

“Drew?” Jake says, looking confused, “What’s wr-?”

Dreamlike, he pulls Jake closer, closer to him, until-

Well, Drew doesn’t really remember howit happened, exactly, but there’s a pause and a yelpfrom Jake as he slips over, lurching forward and throwing a desperate hand out to steady himself, which unfortunately collides with Drew’s chest, shoving him backwards until his back hits the headboards as Jake loses his balance completely, and ends up falling onto the bed, right in front of Drew. Like, right in front of Drew. As in, only an inch away from his face.

Jake stares at him, stunned, silent, lips parted, for a long moment.

And Drew leans in.

Jake’s eyes grow wider, wider, and then Drew closes his eyes and kisses him, just once, softly, and he feels more than hears Jake gasp, then Drew feels himself being kissed back and it’s sweet, and-

And then Jake makes a strangled noise of panic and tears away, and he’s bright red like he’s got an agonising case of sunburn, his eyes strangely glossy.

“What,” he chokes out, “What.”

Drew’s heart promptly takes a break from beating as he considers the possibility he might’ve been wrong about the whole understanding thing.

“Drew,” Jake says, his voice so choked it’s barely above a whisper, “You…”

And Drew would reply, say something, but he can’t find his voice.

Jake blinks, rapidly, for a moment. Then he glances down at himself, and says, slowly, like he has to think about every syllable, “I. I just realized I left something at home,” and he looks so helpless, “I need to go and get it.”

Not the response Drew wanted, exactly.

“I’ll see you at school, Drew,” Jake says – it comes out garbled, like he’s trying to fit it all into one syllable, and then he’s gone, out the door, and, no, that’s definitelynot the response Drew wanted.

Staring balefully at his bed, Drew can’t shake the feeling that he’s probably fucked up.

 //

It is, without a doubt, the worst school day ever(maybe even a contender for worst dayever) – and that’s saying something, because Drew’s not exactly school’s number one fan. He watches Shay lose her shit over Jake’s stitches (‘you’re basically a war hero, Jake!’), Sam bend over to squint at them, saying he has a cream that could help with that, if Jake wants it, and listens to Laura wax poetic about battle scars and rugged masculine beauty so much that Jake, eventually, even seems to perk up about the stitches situation – in other words, the usual melodrama.

Except that Jake is doing his level best not to look at him more than he has to, and Drew knows it.  It actually hurtswhen he catches Shay giving him a questioning look, and he has to shake his head and drop his gaze back down towards the ground. It’s not that they’re fighting,exactly, because they’re not – it’s that they’re not anything,and Drew is lost, feeling like he’s woken up in the middle of a winter night with all his blankets thrown off, shivering and alone, because he’s never had to deal with this before, Jake not looking at him, giving him one word responses, and it knocks him off balance so badly he feels queasy all day, unsettled, so much so that he’s kind of considering going home ill and just lying in bed and maybe never going outside again.

Only when he’s busily not paying attention during literature, he glances away from the window for a moment to find Jake staringat him – only for a second, because Jake looks back down at his work the second Drew glances over, but it’s enough to see how incredibly wistful it is.

Around his pencil, Drew’s hand tightens as his resolve does the same.

He’s not going to his last class, PE today, he decides, because Jake doesn’t have that class now that he’s injured, and he needs to be where Jake is, because it’s his turn to break down a wall.

Jake, understandably, is surprised when Drew seems to be following him home at the end of the day.

“… You have one more class, Drew,” Jake says, hand tightening around the strap of his backpack.

“Not today,” Drew counters.

Jake looks disbelieving – fair, Drew supposes. “You’re not going?”

Drew shakes his head. “I’m walking home with you.”

For a second, Jake looks like he’s going to respond, properly. “Okay,” he says, smiling the weakest smile.

And, really, Drew hadn’t known what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t twenty-five minutes of dead, awful, ringing silence. He can feel his patience wearing thinner and thinner with each passing minute, until they arrive to the Morgan house.

There’s a pause.

“Well,” Jake says eventually, timidly, “I’d better-”

“Ignore me some more?” Drew says, perhaps more spitefully than he’d intended.

Jake flinches,and actually looks devastated,and Drew regrets it immediately.

“Drew-”

“Why are you doing it?” he presses on, because he needs to.

Jake hesitates, looking apprehensive, almost frightened. “Why did you… do what you did this morning?” he asks.

Drew just stares at him, not entirely capable of processing the fact that he’s just been asked that question.

“I’m… confused,Drew,” Jake says, looking pained.

“Why?” Drew is struggling to think of another possible meaning behind his actions this morning.

Jake takes a deep breath. “I’m confused because yesterday I called you and you’d apparently been talking to Jay about…” He pauses, kind of flushes a little, and says, his voice noticeably quieter than before, “Blowjobs.”

Drew stares at him, nonplussed. “Yeah,” he says, “He was asking me why I hadn’t given you one yet.”

Jake pales, clearly expecting a different answer. “…Why would he do that?”

“Because I.” Drew swallows. “Talked to him. About you.”

“About me,” repeats Jake, eyes going wide, “What aboutme?”

And Drew’s starting to get fed up with it, honestly – he’s sure Jake is purposefully playing dumb. “What do you think?”

Jake just gives a numb shake of his head.

“If you don’t know, then why did you spend all day not talking to me?” Drew asks him, pointedly.

“We,” Jake says, and then he swallows, deep and hard, “We need to talkabout this.”

“Why?” Drew can’t figure out why Jake seems so determined to make this whole thing difficult.

“Why?” He’s spluttering, anxious.“Drew, you- you pulled me onto your bed andkissedme this morning.Of coursewe need to talk about this.”

“Well, you told me I ‘cry pretty’,” Drew fires back, squaring his shoulders, “Thenyou said you think I’m alwayspretty.”

Jake stops dead. The speed with which he pales and then turns red again is truly remarkable. “Wh-” His voice breaks like he’s in early adolescence again. “Um. When?”

“When you were concussed.”

“When I was concussed,” Jake repeats, slowly, as though there’s something here Drew is failing to grasp.

“It’s not like that’s the first time you’ve flirted with me, either,” Drew says, just in case Jake gets any funny ideas about blaming it on the concussion, “You do it a lot.”

Jake stares at him, brown eyes wide, afraid.

He licks his lips.

“Yeah,” he says, rapidly, “Yes. I do.”

And, despite everything, Drew’s heart skips a beat. “You do,” he says, like he’s insisting upon it, like Jake hasn’t just owned up to it.

“I… didn’t think you’d notice.” He says it all bashful and blinking at the ground.

Drew can’t help the faintly incredulous expression he knows for a fact is making its way across his face. “How could I not?” Especiallywith the others helpfully making connections where Drew didn’t know how to, he thinks, but he figures that now probably isn’t the time to mention that, not only had Drew noticed, but so had everyone else.

“I didn’t think you’d evernotice.” The extra word makes Drew realise Jake’s talking about something else.

“I’ve noticed,” Drew says, and then he finds himself swallowing, unbidden, deep, “The way you look at me. It just took me a while to realise what it meant.”

“And… what does it mean?” says Jake with a swallow.

“You tell me,” Drew says, because he can’t connect these dots on his own – it has to be bothof them, together.

“Drew.” Pleading. He looks frightened – but not the way he gets in response to unseen rustles in the middle of the night or one of Jay’s over-the-top tales of gore and sadism. This is different, deeper, not split-second shock, not reflex, but something he’s had timeto consider, to think about, to learn to fear.

Drew sighs, not impatient, but concerned. “Jake,” he says, “Don’t look so scared.”

“We can’t take this back.” His eyes are wide, almost panicked.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to hurtyou-” He says it like the very thought hurtshim – and Drew knows it does.

“Jake-” he says, not quite prepared for those words, or for how sharp his voice turns in response to them.

“We need to thinkabout this-”

“Jake-” I have,he wants to say, so much.

“It’ll changethings,” Jake breathes.

“I know.” He keeps his voice soft.

“It’ll change everything.”

Drew gives Jake a reassuring smile that he notices makes Jake gasp a little, takes his hand, squeezing it tight, because it’s easier for him to show than tell, and says, again, “I know.”

Jake looks down at their joined hands like he’s on the verge of refusing to believe what he’s seeing – Drew squeezes again, tighter this time, just because he can. Jake takes in a deep breath – Drew watches his shoulders rise and fall with a shudder – and makes a noise like he wants to speak but can’t.

“I want it to,” Drew says, meaning every inch of it, because he wouldn’t be doing this, anyof this, if he didn’t want to, and Jake should know that, too (Drew thinks he probably does – it’s just that he’s too scared to let himself believe it). “I wantthis.”

Jake looks at him, and Drew can’t bear the apprehension on his face. He does the only thing he can do. „Don’t you?”

The expression on Jake’s face turns into a variety of desperation, fear, shock, and something else, that Drew can’t quite put a finger on. Maybe vulnerability?

„N-no! Of course I do,” Jake says it so hurriedly that Drew almost doesn’t understand a thing, but he does, and he feels as if air’s been knocked out of his body, and the world just did a triple backflip with him. „God, I want to be with you so badly, but-”

„No more buts, then,” he swallows, his throat dry, almost painful. “I trust you.” His voice cracks – he knew it would.

He watches Jake’s shoulders rise and fall in a gasp. “Drew…” He looks happy,shining through his apprehension, in the disbelieving crease of his brow, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes because the smile is thereas much as the rest of him is frightened, and before Drew knows what he’s doing, he’s stepping in to close the distance between them, some part of him wondering vaguely if he looks as nervous as he feels.

“It’s okay. Because it’s us.” He says it to reassure himself as much as Jake.

The smile breaks through, then, though it’s shaky like Drew’s sure his hands would be if one weren’t clasped around Jake’s and the other clenched into an anxious fist at his side, and something gives and Drew feels a little dizzy. “It’s okay,” Jake says, sheer wonder in his voice.

“It’s okay,” Drew says again, and then he leans forward and kisses Jake for the second time today, because he knows that it’s his turn to lead. It only lasts a second, half because Drew doesn’t quite know how far to push it, or what he’s doing - half because he feels Jake tense up, fingernails digging deep into his hand.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he interrupts himself with a swallow, “Um. What I’m doing?” Even as he’s saying it, his free hand comes up to tangle itself in Drew’s hair, like it’s instinctive, unconscious.

“That,” Drew says.

“What?”

“Keep doing that.”

“Oh,” Jake says, faintly, stroking fingers through Drew’s hair, “Okay.”

Silence. Drew leans into Jake’s touch, vaguely aware that his eyes are half-lidded, wondering when that happened.

“What?” he says, when Jake swallows anxiously.

“Nothing,” Jake says, quickly.

“Jake.”

“… Can we maybe go inside for a minute?” Jake asks, looking faintly shamefaced.

Drew is baffled. “Yeah,” he says, “My house is just-”

“Not, um, yourhouse,” Jake cuts in, ducking his head, “Mine.”

“… Okay?”

“We’ll be alone there,” Jake says, and then it clicks.

 “Yes,” Drew says, careful to keep his tone neutral, “Alone. Let’s go.”

They make it to Jake’s house quicker than Drew thought it was possible, and the second they’re through the door, Drew lets out a small, surprised noise as Jake pulls him into a hug, arms squeezing tight around his waist. Drew lets out a sigh, letting himself be pulled flush against Jake, noticing that the terrible flash of shock he usually gets when someone hugs him isn’t there – just warmth, calm, a fluttering pulse.

“I’m sorry,” Jake murmurs, “For being an idiot.”

Drew breathes out a laugh as he rests his head on Jake’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I ruined our first kiss?”

“Mmmm,” Jake hums, “No. You didn’t ruin it.”

“I scared the hell out of you,” says Drew, arching an eyebrow.

“You surprisedme,” Jake corrects.

Drew thinks he could probably get used to being surprising, if this is what he gets out of it. “We should try it again,” he suggests.

He feels Jake’s shoulders stiffen, and he draws back a moment later, to stare at Drew, a blush creeping along his cheeks. “We should,” he swallows again – Drew watches the move and shift of his throat as he does, “Except,” he laughs, and it’s soself-conscious Drew kind of just wants to kiss him before he can finish what he’s saying, “When I’m not freaking out.”

Drew doesn’t even feel the urge to roll his eyes – he’s never felt lesslike rolling his eyes. “Yeah,” he says.

There’s a flicker of hesitation on Jake’s face as he turns his gaze to the ground, so Drew reaches down with a hand, tilting Jake’s chin up and touching their lips together again. He feels Jake take a sharp breath in through his nose, fingers slipping down to where his hair meets his neck and stroking, soft, and Drew gets lost in the feeling, pressing forward and opening his mouth-

“Woah!” Jake breathes out, jerking back, and Drew freezes, fearing he’s done something wrong again.

“What?” Drew asks, wondering if he was maybe moving too fast.

“Nothing,” Jake says, and then he lets out a soft laugh, and then he leans forward and kisses Drew on the nose, and Drew feels his pulse flutter, “Nothing,you just startled me a little.”

Well, yeah, truth to be told, Drew is rather surprised at himself, too. Or, he would be, if his mind wasn’t so preoccupied with dizzy thoughts at the moment. Usually, he’s the shy one.

“So that’s okay?” He’s still reeling from the nose-kiss thing – howis that affecting him so much?

“What’s okay?”

“The… tongue thing.” The tongue thing.He can practically hearShay screaming at him from miles away.

Jake lets out a breathless laugh – Drew can read how nervous he is, how exhilarated. “Yeah,” he says, “It’s definitely okay.”

“Okay,” says Drew, pulling Jake forward so he can push Jake’s backpack off his shoulders – it goes rushing to the floor with a thud –Drew ditches his own satchel as it does.

Jake laughs again, probably as giddy as Drew feels, and lets himself be pushed back up against the door, and Drew, not knowing quitewhat he’s doing, but doing it anyway, leans up to kiss him again, once, twice, three times, making Jake let out a little chuckle, and then Drew tilts his head and presses forward, and their lips meet, and Jake takes in the sharpest breath when he lets Drew deepen the kiss, fingers tangling in his hair. He’s kind of taken aback by how perfectly they fit together, like they were meant to do this. He moves with Jake, letting everything he doesn’t know how to say bleed into the kiss, his tongue, his hands, clutching at Jake’s arms, feeling Jake clutch back, flow back into him, where they meet, where it makes sense. He doesn’t needwords with Jake – just this, now, them, and maybe he’s never needed anythingelse.

And all at once he can’t breathe, so he pulls away, heaving in a breath, and Jake dips his head to rest his forehead against Drew’s – Drew can feel his heartbeat in his chest, and he closes his eyes, lets it steady him the way only Jake can.

“Wow, Drew,” Jake breathes, “Drew,” and Drew closes his eyes, thinking he could probably quite happily listen that forever.

And Drew gets it – it’s like the ocean meeting the moon after an eternity of reaching.

“You’ve done that before, haven’t you?” Jake teases after a moment, his voice just a touch rough.

 “No, idiot,” he says, nudging him impatiently, “You would knowabout it, if I had.” He pauses. “I’ve never even wantedto do it with anyone else.”

“Me neither, to be completely honest,” Jake murmurs, and Drew draws back a little, then, so he can see him – flushed and eyes shining, and he’s smiling like Drew’s never seen him smile, soft and content and happy,and Drew feels it bleed into his own happiness, and it’s almost too much.

Jake breathes out another laugh, sharp, abrupt, like he’s coming out of a daze – he seems to be laughing a lot, realises Drew.

“What?”

“It’s just,” Jake says, shaking his head, “A lot of things make sense now.”

Drew cocks his head. “Like?”

Jake very nearly smirks.“How weird you were acting about Andrea, for one.” He giggles. “I thoughtyou seemed jealous.”

Drew feels himself go bright red. “I,” he says, emphatically, “Was not jealous-”

“Is that why you threw a tantrum Jay would be proud of every time she came up?” Jake teases him, doing this thing where he hooks his fingers through Drew’s belt loops and yanks him closer, casually, like he’s been doing it his whole life. Drew thinks he probably likes it, a lot.

“Nnnnn,” he grumbles at Jake, with a petulant glance down at the floor.

“You had no reason to be jealous,” Jake says, gently.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a flirt.”

“Hey,” says Jake, mock-defensively, “I’mnot the one who goes around sketching wet shirtless pictures of boys he thinks are cute where they’re going to see it.”

“I didn’t meanto,” Drew protests, flailing on the inside.

“Ah,” Jake says, eyes glittering, “So it’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“You dothink I’m cute.”

Drew just stares at him, for a long, stunned moment. Jake gives him this big, cheesy, stupid smile that makes his heart skip a beat.

“…Shut up,” Drew says, with no menace whatsoever, and Jake just laughs again. “Youthink I’m pretty,” is his accusatory counter-attack.

“Mmm-hmmmm,” Jake hums, and Drew tightens up a little, in the good way, at the kiss he places on Drew’s forehead. “I actually think you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen. But I still can’t believeI saidthat.”

Drew goes a little light-headed. “You whispered it,” Drew informs him, voice wavering a little, “In my ear.” He elects to leave out the part about him going home and getting a hard-on over it, because he’s considerate like that.

Jake must pick up on something,though, because he pulls back, giving Drew a playful look, and says, “You say that like you enjoyed it, Drew.”

Perhaps against his better judgement, Drew continues not to mention the whole situation that occured after. The problem is that he doesn’t really know what to say, which leaves him wide open for-

Jake to lean forward, and brush his lips against Drew’s ear, and murmur, “Am I right, babe?”, and Drew can feel his skin tingling, his nerves buzzing, his breath catch in a gasp, and then he does probably the dumbest thing possible and kisses Jake again, and Jake makes a delighted, if amused, noise, falling into the kiss with him, falling into him.

Because if Drew’s going to get a boner, then it’s going to be over Jake at leastkissing him, not just whispering words into his ear, and-

“Wait,”he gasps, sliding his hands up to grip Jake’s shoulders so he can push himself backwards, “Jake, wait-”

The soft coyness Jake had been wearing drops like a stone, leaving behind a sheen of alarm. “What?” he cries, panicked, guilty, and Drew finds himself reaching out to thread their fingers together before he even knows what he’s doing.

“It’s okay,” he says, “It’s just…”

It’s just I have a half-boner.

No. No way.

“It’s just what?”

“It’s just,” Drew says, feeling his face flush, “I don’t want to move too quickly.”

Jake blinks at him, eyes distant with noncomprehension. Then his eyes flicker down Drew’s torso, and damn it.

“Oh,” he says, going red himself, “Yeah. Right.”

They stare at each other for a moment. Drew kind of wishes the earth would just open up and swallow him whole.

Then Jake snorts, and it’s soinelegant, melting into a fit of giggles, and Drew has to bury his face in his hands to hide the fact that he’s sort of laughing, too, but also the important fact that he’s blushing so hard he can feel it creeping down his neck.

“In that case,” Jake says, laughter still wisping through his voice, and Drew peeks through his fingertips to find his eyes sparkling with amusement, but before he could continue, Drew indulges “I should probably go home. My dads won’t-”

His eyes widen and he trails off as the frantic drum-dance of rain, thick and heavy, finally begins falling outside. He turns to peer out the window, looking faintly alarmed.

“You’re not going out in that,” Jake says, immediately.

Drew’s eyes flicker. “But Dads-” he protests.

“Call them,” Jake says, “Tell them you were here to get something and it started raining.”

Drew is hesitant.

“Tell them…” Jake says, suddenly seeming self-conscious, “Tell them I’m here for you.”

Drew’s eyes widen, and he almost wants to look away. Jake smiles, and laughs, and for some reason the kiss he presses to Drew’s cheek makes him feel dizzier than anything else. He goes to his room while Drew calls Benji.

//

It works. “He said I have to come home as soon as the rain stops, though” he says as he enters Jake’s room.

When Jake gets close, Drew tilts his head, expecting a kiss, and getting quite another thing entirely when Jake reaches out a playful finger to tap against his nose.

Drew doesbristle, then. “I’m not a cat,” he grumbles.

“Aren’t you,” Jake says, fondly, “Because you act like one.”

“I don’t,”Drew insists, because it’s kind of making him fidget, and then, feeling a little devious as a plan occurs to him, “I’ve still got your game.”

Jake regards him blankly for a moment. Then Drew feels more than hears or sees the excited gasp tear through him, and Drew can’t help but grin.

“Ahh, Drew,” he babbles, looking some sort of cute combination of thrilled and grateful, “It’s beautiful,you’ve cleaned it up somuch and one of the new neighbours just gave me a present  and and-”

Drew lets him go, watching him ramble excitedly as he stares with rapture at the screen in front of him. He doesn’t even think Jake realises he’s climbed up onto the bed to sit next to him, not until he rests his head on his shoulder, anyway, but by that point, Drew’s mind is beginning to swirl with exhaustion, and disbelief, warmth pulsing through him, and then his mind doesn’t swirl at all.

He wakes up, later, he doesn’t know when, what day it is, or what hour, knowing nothing, except that the sun is gone and he’s in Jake’s arms, his back pressed against Jake’s chest.

The rain’s stopped. His stomach sinks, even as he turns his head into the hand stroking through his hair, breathing out a still-sleepy sigh.

“Hi, babe” Jake says, his voice soft, gentle like a calm tide.

“Hey,” Drew says, his voice still grainy from sleep, “What time is it?”

“A little after nine,” Jake says, sounding regretful.

Drew is distinctly aware of the fact that Jake makes exactly no move to get up off the bed, and finds himself keenly, selfishly satisfied.

“You fell asleep on me,” Jake points out.

“Mmm.”

“So much for not being a cat,” Jake continues, and Drew can feelhim grinning.

“Mmmmm.” He doesn’t push it, this time – he knows how much Jake loves cats, after all.

There’s a pause. “Is this okay?”

Drew lets his eyes slip shut. “Yeah,” he says, smiling faintly where no one can see it, “It’s okay.”

“I’m glad,” Jake says softly, “That you trust me so much.”

Drew doesn’t even think about it. “I always have,” he says.

“I know,” says Jake, and even if he can’t see the smile, he can hear it, feel it, coursing through Jake’s veins where his chest is pressed against his back, his heartbeat. He decides he wants to see it, though, because he can, and so he rolls over. He can just make out Jake’s features in the silvery moonlight pouring through his window, and knows that they’re shaped into a faint smile.

“I’m glad you didn’t give up on me.”

He hears Jake’s breath catch in his throat. “Never,” he murmurs, leaning forward to close the last inch between them with his lips against Drew’s forehead, “I would never.”

I know,Drew almost says, only there’s more he wants to say that he can’t find the words for, so he shifts to kiss Jake instead, and tells him like that – with his lips, and his fingers threading through Jake’s hair, using his tongue and lips for other things besides words, deeper things that he can only show Jake like this, in the dark, with nothing but the two of them, and all the world outside drowned out.

Jake makes a pained sound when Drew breaks the kiss, and then Drew is hushing him, soothing him by brushing his hair back from his face and going, “I know- I know,Jake, but if I don’t stop now, I’ll be here all night-”

“So do it,” Jake whispers, perfectly content with the idea.

“I wantto - I will,” Drew murmurs, “I promise. But not tonight.”

The promise is enough to soothe Jake – for now. “I guess,” he relents, “Your dads are probably plotting my death as we speak.”

Drew laughs at that, like it’s been startled out of him, and Jake grins at him, like it’s the only sight he’ll ever want to see.

There’s a moment, in the doorway, where neither of them know what to do – Drew can sense Jake’s hesitation.

“I think you’re supposed to kiss me good night,” he says, and Jake grins,making his heart skip a beat, and he does, soft and sweet, more hands in his hair than anything else, the lightest touch of his lips.

“Good night, Drew,” he says, softly.

“Night,” is all Drew can manage in return.

Later that night, when Drew’s lying in his own bed, he sighs and does what he feels like the right thing to do.

i did it,he texts Shay, knowing that Shay is probably more keen to tell everyone else than heis. He almost adds a smiley face, but in the end, it’s just not his style.

He turns his phone off instead.

Much better,he thinks to himself, rolling over with a surge of relief him to smile in real life, where just he and his pillow have to know about it.

//

They hold hands, on the way to school. Jake picks him up like always, they eat breakfast like always, and as they’re walking down the street Jake’s hand brushes against his, and Drew finds himself taking it before he knows what he’s doing. Jake only looks surprised for a second, before he smiles, and links their fingers together, closer, tighter. Drew sort of marvels at how dizzy it makes him feel – how he feels like he’s been doing it his whole life.

Shay’s done her job – that much becomes apparent when they get to school. Sam lets out a big smile the moment he sees them approaching, doing that weird spaced out shiny-eyed thing he does when he sees something (or someone, Drew supposes) he likes. Laura actually makes some fondly-murmured comment about true love prevailing, or something, Drew doesn’t actually quite catch the finer points of it because it’s hurried and directed mostly at Shay-

Who is staring at both he and Jake like they’re dessert. Drew feels the urge to step in front of Jake, to put some space in between him and Shay. He wonders briefly it that says more about Shay or himself.

“So,” Shay says, brightly, “Those musicals.”

Drew just stares at her, carefully ignoring Jake’s baffled look beside him.

The grin drops to a slight pout. “Oh, whatever, Drew,” she snips, “I know you’re laughing on the inside.”

“I’m really not.”

“You can’t fool me, Drew – I’ve seen you laugh. I know it’s real.”

“Prove it.” It’s a challenge he immediately regrets issuing, when Shay hurls herself bodily into Drew with the force of a puppy at dinnertime, fingers stretched out in wicked claws made for tickling. “NO.”He manages to execute a complicated manoeuvre, ending up with Shay standing in front of him with her back to Drew, who is (barely) gripping her wrists like he’s about to arrest her.

“Andrew,” Laura says, mildly, “I will have to ask you, knowing full well how temptingit is, to please not be so rough with Shay.”

“Call off the tickling,” Drew attempts to bargain.

Laura gives him a wistful look. “Would if I could” she says, and Drew supposes that she’s right – Laura certainly doesn’t wear the pants in the relationship.

Drew sighs. “I will answer one question,” he says to Shay, “One.If you quit it with the tickling.”

“Deal,” Shay says, instantly, and Drew, reluctantly, releases her. “Did you kiss?”

Jake promptly glows brighter than the red light of a police siren, slapping his hands over his face. Drew thinks it’s kind of cute, as does Shay, presumably, judging from the high-pitched and largely inhuman squeaking noise she lets out.

“Technically,”she says then, sweetly, “Jake answered that one, so-”

“Shay,” Drew says, rather kindly, considering the situation, “Leave it.”

Jay, of course, is not to be outdone.

“Is it even gayer than usual in here, or is it just me?” he demands when he rolls into the café they’re all meeting that afternoon. Drew can tell he’s been practicing it.

„It definitely is,” begins Drew, smugly, „Now that you’re here, too.”

Jay only shoots him an unimpressed glare.

Not that Drew really minds– not when he gets his drink from Jake, and Jake’s hand lingers when he hands it over to him, not when it makes his heart flutter.

They stare at each other for a moment.

“Oh, just fucking do it,”Jay calls at them, “Hold handsalready.”

Drew doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

Not where he can see it, at least.

“Should I ask why everyone knew?” Jake asks, good-naturedly, that afternoon, his fingers linked with Drew’s on the idle walk home. They dawdle on purpose. Drew watches the red-orange swirl of sunset reflect on Jake’s skin, and hopes it hides the way his own face flushes at the question.

“I,” he says, “Asked them. What to do. And-”

But Jake just laughs, surprised, but pleased.

“Cute,” he says, and Drew isn’t sure if he’ll ever get used to that.

There’s a pause. Drew is comfortable in the silence.

“So. My parents said it was okay for me to come over for a while,” Jake says, his voice carefully idle, “Even with the injury thing. So you can help me catch up on all the schoolwork I’ve missed. Because that’s important. And stuff.”

“Yes,” Drew agrees, understanding completely,“Schoolwork.”

The only thing that Drew learns that evening is that Jake can be really, reallyneedy. Not that he’s complaining.

 //

There’s a moment, a few weeks later, where they’re in Jake’s room, doing the thing where they’re ostensibly studying, sorry, kids, it’s really important and they’re not to be disturbed, where Drew maybe gets a bitcarried away when Jake’s teeth scrape against the shell of his ear, and he’s becoming increasingly preoccupied with kissing wet trails down his neck, and, well, Drew thinks that probably meanssomething.

He lets out the tiniest moan, which makes Jake stop breathing for a second.

“…Jake?” Drew says, pulling away, concerned all of a sudden.

When Jake faces him, he realizes that his pupils are a bit too blown out, eyes a bit too dark, and Drew’s breath hitches in his throat.

„Do you even have any idea,” Jake begins, kissing him softly, but with a force that starts a fire many places in Drew’s body, „what you’re doing to me?” He says, whispering agains his lips.

„You’re one to ta-”

Jake shuts him up with a kiss. Drew’s okay with that.

Jake, while crouched over him kissing him deeply, shifts his thigh in between Drew’s legs, and so he arches his hips up, grinding experimentally against Jake’s thigh. Jake doesn’t seem to be bothered, so he does it again, and again…

And then Jake gasps and pulls back, voice shaking „I-I think we should probably-”

Well, Drew’s pretty much accepted he’s terrible at the self-control thing, because the next second he’s hooked a leg around Jake’s waist without even really realising he’s done it, drawing Jake back down and in, againsthim and Jakepushes back against him this time, a groan slipping past his lips and into Drew’s when they grind against one another. Drew pushes back against him, arching his back with a sigh, and it’s all too good, everything’s too good he feels completely dizzy.

 //

It’s the most humid Sunday in the history of forever, and Drew basically wants to die. Jake had turned up at about eleven, at which point he’d promptly forced him to get out of his frigid beyond reason bath after an hour, concerned about him catching cold.

“I’m more worried I’m going to melt,”Drew grumbles, but does come out of the bath. Grudgingly.

“Hypothermia isn’t a joke,” Jake tells him, seriously, when Drew eventually emerges from the bathroom and appears in the doorway, wearing only shorts because, damn, hot.

“It is in this heat,” counters Drew. “Why did you come over?” The Paynes have aircon. Drew had been seriously debating making the walk over there so he could drape himself over it and not move for the foreseeable future, but the clarion call of the cold bath had been too much for him.

“Of all the times for the aircon to go down,” Jake says, looking utterly despairing.

“Shit,” Drew says, unhappily. There goes plan B.

They try to cuddle – Drew really, reallytries, but it’s just too fucking stickyto do anything but lie there with a good foot of space between them, Drew in his shorts, Jake in his pants, the both of them slowly transitioning to a liquid state, not so much watching a movie but half-dozing, suffocated by the oppressive heat. Drew would normally be more enthused by Jake lounging around in nothing but his jeans, but even this does nothing to move him.

Not today.

Jake’s hand creeps over to settle over his, though, and he guesses that’s okay.

“This is fucked,” Drew remarks, more to the creaky ceiling fan swirling in circular patterns abovey than Jake.

“I saidwe should go to the pool,” Jake sighs, “Yousaid it was too much effort.”

“It is,”Drew insists. That and Andrea will probably be there – since Jake’s been back at his volunteer job at the severe reluctance of both his dads and Drew, Drew has learned that Andrea teaches a children’s swim class on Sundays, because of courseshe does, and Drew’s just not in the mood for dealing with her today. Drew is in the mood for very littletoday, apart from Jake.

Drew hates this day, everything about it.

Jake lets out an agonised moan. “I would kill for a popsicle.”

Truer words never spoken.

Hold the phone.

“I think I have popsicles,” Drew says, chest tight with hope – he has a vague memory of Shay buying a whole box from the corner store one day a few months ago, loudly insisting that she’d get through all of them. She hadn’t, and they’re the overly sweet kind, the kind that hurt his teeth, as expected of Shay, but he’s pretty sure they’re there,hiding somewhere in the freezer.

Jake’s clawed himself upright in the next second. “I’ll be back,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Drew promises himself that he’ll make out with him just a littlewhen he gets back. But he’s not getting up.

Jake returns a moment later, an unwrapped popsicle in each hand – one red, one white – and an expression of pure joy on his face.

“White or red?” he asks, almost breathlessly.

Drew considers it. “Red,” he says, reaching a hand out, and when Jake sits down on the bed beside him, Drew hooks a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss, true to his word. He breaks away after a second, to a sound of protest from Jake.

“They’ll melt,” Drew says, cursing Jake when he nuzzles against his neck, because Jake can play him like a harp when he wants to.

“But-”

“Eat your popsicle, Jake.”

It starts off innocently enough, Drew will later insist – all he reallywants to do is see if he can fit the whole thing in his mouth so that it tempers the heat a little, so he forgoes biting into it like he usually would to slip it between his lips, letting it melt against his tongue, staring dazedly up at the ceiling some more.

Sogood.

He hears something hit the mattress – something small, faint. And again. And again.

He turns his head to investigate the irritating sound, and finds Jake, sitting up on his elbow, half-eaten popsicle dripping against the sheets in thick, viscous beads, presumably forgotten, staring at Drew like he’s aroused and can’t keep his eyes off him, or something-

Drew almost giggles. This leads him to consider the possibility that he might be experiencing heatstroke.

“Babe,” Jake says, sounding a little strangled, “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Drew lets the popsicle slip out of his mouth, flicking his tongue against the end. “I don’t know, Jakey,” he says, keeping his voice neutral, “Am I?”

So maybe the heat is addling his brain a little. Or maybe it’s just that they’re alreadysweating to death, so what’s a little more?

“You’ll have to spell it out, Drew,” Jake says, a flush blooming across his cheeks, “I’m not really following.”

So Drew does what any normal person possibly suffering from maddening heatstroke might do, and slips the popsicle back between his lips and sucks. Hard.

Drew’s known Jake for a long time. He knows what it looks like when Jake’s brain comes sputtering to a halt – the wide eyes, the slightly-parted lips. The intense blush is new, as are the blown out pupils, but they are welcomeadditions.

“I,” Jake says, sounding strained.

“You,”Drew counters, neatly, letting the sweet pass his lips again, “Will have to spell it out, Jake. Because I’mnot following.”

Jake doesn’t react, like he hasn’t heard him speak, for a moment. Then his face falls into despair.

“Drew,”he whines, looking humiliated, when he hasn’t even doneanything, “Come on.”

Drew casually goes back to sucking the popsicle, accompanied by an exaggerated shrug. This could be you,he thinks, giving Jake a challenging look.

Jake clearly gets the message, judging from the deep, slow breath of frustration he takes „Are you actually kidding me?”

This time Drew does giggle, the popsicle never leaving his lips.

“You’re so mean,” he pouts, actuallypouts, and instead of the presumably desired effect of making Drew take pity on him, it just makes him want to amp it up.

Drew just raises his eyebrows, drawing back to let his tongue flick at the tip of the popsicle. He’s a little surprised at how muchhe’s enjoying this.

Heatstroke. Probably.

“Could you,” Jake begins, haltingly, “Please.” Drew has to battlethe urge to smile, because Jake.

Drew tilts his head, waiting.

„Stop?!”

Laughter excapes from Drew then, open and honest.

The day might actually turn out well, after all, he thinks.

Jake might ask him to put his lips at a better use.

(He does.)

//

They hang back after literature one afternoon, a week later – Jake wants to ask the teacher some questions about the exact text Drew had spent all lesson not paying attention to. He sits at his desk, sketching out Jake’s hands on a piece of scrap paper, looking up and smiling, a little, when he sees him gesticulating excitedly with them as he talks to the teacher.

She checks her watch about ten minutes into conversation. “Ah!” she exclaims, “I’m late!”

Drew glances up curiously.

Jake cocks his head. “Late for what?” he asks, looking confused, “The next class doesn’t start for another ten minutes-”

“Oh,” she says, rather quickly, almost nervously, “Actually, I won’t have any more today. I have, ah, an engagement.”

Jake blinks. And then she’s gone, in a small, elegant whirlwind.

Jake stares after her. “What was thatabout?”

“She has a date,” Drew replies, going back to his sketch.

“What?” Jake asks, “How do youknow?”

Drew shrugs. “It’s obvious,” he replies.

“How?” Jake asks, arching an eyebrow at him.

Drew just shrugs again – like he said, obvious.

Jake, evidently, decides it isn’t worth pursuing, because the next moment pulls a chair over with a discordant creak. “What’re you drawing?”

“Hands,” Drew answers, evasively.

“Oh?” Jake says, and the next second one of the hands in question comes to rest on his knee.

Drew gives him a barely-amused glance. “What’re you doing?”

“Well,” Jake says, mischief-tinged, “Since we have nowhere to be for the next, oh, seven minutes…”

“Are you suggesting we make out in this classroom?” Drew asks him, bluntly.

Jake gives him a wide smile. “I’m suggesting you sit in my lap?” he says, “Please?”

Drew has no objections to this course of action. They’re about to kiss when Jake’s phone rings.

“Ah,” Jake says, blinking, “Once second, Drew.”

Drew is disgruntled.

“Oh,” Jake says, eyes alighting on the screen, “It’s Andrea.”

Drew is downright seething.

“Ahhhh, she texted me about going for a coffee and I forgot to reply,” Jake says, thoughtfully, sounding as though he can’t believe his own rudeness, still absorbed in his phone screen and not Drew, missing the dark and stormy emotion that is no doubt playing out across his face, “I should-”

No. Jake is notsliding his phone screen open, like he intends on answering. Absolutely not.

He’s reaching over and sliding Jake’s phone shut without even realising it, earning himself a look of surprise. He takes advantage of Jake’s compromised state to slip the phone from his fingers and into his own pocket.

“Drew-” Jake begins, but Drew surges forward to kiss him before he can finish what he’s saying, nipping at Jake’s lower lip to shut him up. He grabs Jake by the shoulders, yanking him closer with a roughness, biting down harder, hard enough for Jake to let out a gasp.

“What,” Jake murmurs, “Are you doing?”

Asserting my dominance, he almost says. He decides that a hickey will be the more effective answer, and pulls away from Jake’s lips to wrench the neck of his shirt down with two fingers, sinking his teeth into Jake’s collarbone and sucking, hard.

“Drew,”Jake moans, “No.” Sadly for him, the way his hips jerk up in response, the way Drew feels something stiffen against him, do nothing to help his argument. Despite his protests to the contrary, Jake is so easy,even if Drew knows it goes both ways, that Jake is just as capable of making him fall to pieces with a few careful touches – Drew wouldn’t have it any otherway.

“We’re in a classroom,someone could walk in any second,”Jake keeps protesting, like he hadn’tbeen the one with the bright idea on the first place, like the idea isn’texciting him, “The others will come lookingfor us-”

“We’d better be quick, then,” is Drew’s only response, kissing him again.

“I can’t believe you,” Jake sighs.

“I don’t see you stopping me,” Drew counters, knowing full well Jake has absolutely no intention of doing so.

“All that complaining you did about Shay and Lauraaaaaaaahhhh-”He cuts himself off with a sighing moan, as Drew rocks his hips against his.

„Wait, hold on…” Jake stares at him for a moment. “Are you… angry?” he asks, even as he reaches over to hold Drew in place.

Drew doesn’t say anything.

“Why are you-”

“Shut up,” Drew says, “Stop talking and kiss me.”

Jake’s expression is caught between confusion and excitement. He complies after a moment, moving forward, and it’s more teeth than lips when Drew meets him, which results in Jake letting out a small gasp.

Then he ducks his head down, same teeth sinking into Jake’s throat.

“Drew, no,” Jake almost yelps, grabbing him by the shoulders, “Not there, please, my dads will-”

Drew just rolls his eyes and slips the first few buttons of Jake’s shirt open, peeling the shirt open to give him better access to Jake’s collarbone.

“Drew, please-”

“Tell me what you need,” Drew says, his voice rough and low.

Jake doesn’t hesitate. “You,” he says, softly, “I need you,” and that doesthings to Drew, and he almostshivers, almost shows how vulnerable he is, shows how much he needs Jake, too, how much he needs Jake to need himand nobody else, so he surges forward and kisses Jake again, so Jake can’t see his face, though he knows Jake can read him through touch alone.

//

“Jake,” he breathes, staring into Jake’s darkened eyes with his own no doubt glassy ones. I need you, too,he almost says, but he doesn’t need to, he’s neverneeded to, because Jake always knows, when it’s important.

They’re silent, for a moment, then – nothing but heavy breathing and the empty air of the classroom around him.

“Okay,” Jake says, still panting, eyes unfocused, sliding a hand down Drew’s hips –“Wow. Okay. That was superhot. But super unnecessary.”

Drew doesn’t even stir from his place against Jake’s shoulder, because Jake, clearly, doesn’t know what he’s talking about – it had been completelynecessary.

Jake lets out a sound that is, by his standards, impatient. “We should get going,” he says, “Someone might come by, and we’re already late,” and Drew guesses he can’t argue with that.

It’s as he’s stading up to pull his shirt back on when Jake lets out a sigh and says, hesitantly, like he doesn’t really want to say it, but knows he should, “I kind of thought we were past that?”

Drew runs a hand through his –now slightly messy- dark hair, and spares Jake the briefest of glances. “So did I,” he says.

Jake’s eyebrows knit together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Drew shrugs, as if to say, you know.

Jake’s shoulders draw back – Drew can feelhow tense he is. “What, exactly, have I done to upset you?”

“It’s not you,”Drew says, and he has to force himself not to grit his teeth.

“So why are you mad at me,then?” Jake demands, and he so rarely gets this way with Drew that it takes Drew a second to place the emotion – he’s annoyed. Frustrated.

“It’s not you,”Drew reiterates, and why doesn’t Jake getit?

Jake takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to steady himself, draw courage before wading into particularly treacherous waters. “Drew, it’s notfair,” he says, “That every time you get upset, you get like this.”

Drew raises his eyebrows coolly. “Like what?”

“You shut down,”Jake says, his voice cracking a little, “You pull awayfrom me.It’s not fairto do that, and then stand there and tell me I’ve done nothing.”

“You could stop encouraging her,” Drew says, and he hadn’t meantto say it, blame Jake for attracting people, but it’s out, now.

“… Encouragingher?” Jake repeats, looking taken aback.

“Texting her all the time,” Drew clarifies, “Going out for coffee-” Drew kind of hates himself for saying things like that. As if Jake doesn’t constantly have to deal with Drew’s little „fans”.

“I don’t text her all the time,” Jake protests, “And we’ve never actually gonefor coffee.”

“Why even talk about doing it, then?” Drew demands. He just can’t shut up.

“Because she’s a friend?” Jake says. His expression changes, his eyes widening. “Wait a second, what is it you think I’m encouraging her to believe?”

Drew just stares at him, unwilling to voice what Jake already knows full well.

Jake, typically, is all too willing to step in and do it for him. “You still think I might like her,” he says, his voice quiet with surprise, “Still.”

Drew doesn’t say anything. At least they’re on the same page.

Jake looks about as close to actually angry as Drew’s ever seen him – his eyes are hard, almost like the cold edge of steel, but there’s a softness that tempers them, and Drew knows it’s mostly fuelled by hurt. “I’ve neverliked her,” he says, his voice sharp, “Ever,not like that, and if you’d bothered to ask, you would know that the extent of our relationship is talking about swimming and school,” he pauses, eyebrows knitting together, “Andyou.”

“Why me?” Drew is annoyed by this revelation.

“Because you’re the most important thing in the world to me, Drew,” Jake fires back.

 “She doesn’t seem to understand that-” Drew begins to protest, too worked up to figure out how that statement makes him feel, but Jake’s already silencing him with a gentle finger pressed against his lips.

“I don’t think this is about her, Drew,” he says, “I think this is about you.”

“It is not-”

“No, listen,” Jake cuts in, and when Drew makes a sound of protest, he shakes his head and repeats, “Drew, listen,”his voice insistent.

Drew glares at him, but bites his tongue.

Jake sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. When he opens his eyes they’re too glazed for Drew’s liking, and something pulls in his chest, something like guilt-

“I love you,” Jake says, sounding utterly harassed.

Drew might scream. Possibly. He might die. Maybe.

But he just freezes, feeling the rush and impact of being knocked into water unexpectedly, the brief moment of breathlessness before hitting the surface, sinking deep.

“Ah, fuck,” Jake swears, sounding defeated, resigned, covering his eyes with a hand, and Drew actually jerks, “Thatwasn’t how I meant to say it.”

Drew can’t actually bring himself to respond. He feels Jake tense up against him, feels Jake getting the wrong idea,and he can’t say a thing.

“Okay, okay, look,” Jake says, his voice quick with panic, “I’m sorry, Drew, I didn’t mean to say it like that, I didn’t want to scareyou, but I don’t know what elseto say, she’s just a- a friend,just someone I see at work sometimes, and she doesknow about us, Drew, and I dotalk about you to her, all the time,and she even said‘it sounds like you really love him’, and of courseI love you-”

“Jake-” he finally manages, completely taken aback.

“I love you more than anything,” Jake says, and Drew thinks he might be on the verge of tears, “I always have,and I never really actually thought about being in lovewith you, because it’s just the same, right? It’s just what’s alwaysbeen there, like I’ve alwaysknown you make me happy, but I wantedto say it anyway, only I worried-” He takes a deep breath, and it shivers like it’s painful for him, “That I don’t make youhappy, or that you don’t trustme, and how could I say something like that to you if you weren’t ready to hear it, or if you didn’t feel the same way, what if I lostyou-”

“Jake!”Drew almost shouts, grabbing both of his hands, “That’s enough!”

Jake stops with the tiniest hitching gasp, finally glancing up at Drew, wide-eyed, like he’s just been slapped.

Clarity comes to Drew, like it often does – suddenly, after he’s already done damage. “… I’m being an asshole,” he says, guilt heavy, oppressive in his throat.

Jake pauses, clearly not expecting that. “About what?” he asks, cautiously.

Drew sighs, and it’s a sigh of defeat. “Andrea,” he grumbles.

Jake just stares at him, impassive for a moment. “… Yeah,” he admits, “You kind of are.”

“Sorry.” He means it. “I dotrust you.” Jake blinks – Drew watches as the tears that had been lurking in his voice dissipate, and feels like a monster. “More than anyone else,” he elaborates, squeezing his hands.

Jake looks cautious, hopeful. “…You’re not mad at me?”

“Why would I be?” Drew asks him. He hesitates, knowing shame is spreading across his face. “Youshould be mad at me.”

Jake bites his lip. “Oh, Drew,” he says, looking anxious, “I’m not madat you.” He breathes out a soft, sharp laugh. “To be honest, the whole jealousy thing-”

Drew makes an irritated noise.

“Drew,” Jake says, admonishingly, raising his eyebrows, “Don’t even start.”

Drew makes another, slightly less irritated noise.

“It’s sort of cute, and at least now I know I’m not the only one of us who gets like that” Jake says, and his mouth twitches like he’s thinking about smiling, and Drew feels his guilt fade a little, “But within reason. You don’t have to be. We… don’t have to be.”

Drew nods, swallowing. “And… you don’t have to worry about losing me.”

Jake’s face softens. “I know,” he says, “It’s just… I worry.” He lets out a nervous laugh.

Drew moves to climb into his lap, wanting to make up for it, wanting to indulge Jake. Jake lets him, looping strong arms around his waist, holding him steady.

“I’m sorry,” Drew says again, and Jake just shakes his head with a smile, reaching a hand out to stroke his face.

“It’s okay,” Jake says, and Drew knows he means it. And then he kisses Drew on the cheek, and just like that, it all falls away, and Drew can breathe again.

He cocks his head, feeling curious. “You… talk about me?” he asks, “To her?” The thought warms him.

Jake reddens a little. “Um, yeah,” he admits, “Not just to her. To everyone.”

Drew blinks. “Even, like, Jay?”

Jake clears his throat. “Well, yeah. The other day he told me to ‘shut the hell up already’ and that I could put my mouth to better, actually desired use by… you know.”

Oh, Drew knows alright. It’s apparently Jay’s go-to advice.

“I mean, that’s not how he actuallysaid it, but, well, you know Jay. You probably think I’m an idiot,” Jake says, with a bashful glance to the side.

“No,” Drew says, because he could never, and Jake looks a little relieved, “What do you say about me?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Jake asks, looking mockingly unimpressed.

“Your exact words,” Drew insists, tugging at his collar impatiently.

Jake gives him a sly little smile, nudging him. “Maybe you can ask Andrea,” he teases.

Drew arches an eyebrow. “Maybe you can not push your luck,” he counters.

“They’re embarrassingthings,” Jake protest, shrinking back.

“I want to hear them,” Drew says stubbornly.

“We don’t exactly have a spare couple of hours, Drew,” Jake sighs, and Drew realises he’s probably not joking.

Later, then.

He hesitates, then lowers his gaze to the floor and says, “I wasready to hear it, you know.”

“Hear what?”

“What you said.”

Silence. Then he hears Jake take a sharp breath.

“I know I’m,” Drew swallows, anxiously, “Not good. At saying things. But…”

He glances up to find Jake staring at him, eyes wide, disbelieving.

The door slides open with a squeak.

“There you two are!” Shay trills, striding into the room with purpose, “Sneaky make-outs after class? When you should be in class?  The sub teacher is already somad at y-”

She falls silent. Drew braces himself as Shay’s gaze sharpens into a critical squint. Then she gasps, hands flying to the sides of her face, and Drew knows all is lost.

“Did Jake say it?!”Shay pretty much screams, looking elated.

“Do you,” Drew says, archly, “Have to ruin everything, Shay?”

Idiot, that was TACIT CONFIRMATION-is all he has time to think, before Shay goes barrelling into the both of them with a sound of pure joy– Jake screams as the chair goes toppling over, and Drew watches as his head narrowly missesthe corner of the desk-

He lets out a muffled grunt as they hit the floor, all three of them, Drew sandwiched on his belly in a disgruntled pile between Jake and Shay.

“Shay,” Drew says, calmly, “You almost made Jake hit his head.”

Another silence.

“I’ll start running, Drew,” Shay says, with a defeated sigh.

“You’ve got ten seconds,” Drew says, feeling rather generous – he feels Shay roll off him, then the sound of her sneakers squeaking against tile as she bolts away. That problem dealt with, he props himself up on his elbow so that he can give Jake room to breathe – and check him over.

“I’m alright,” Jake says, arching an eyebrow up at him, “Don’t hurt Shay.” His faint smile betrays him.

“I wasn’t going to,” Drew says, gently, while Jake lovingly wipes his bangs out of his eyes, “I just wanted him gone.”

“Ah,” says Jake, knowingly, “Manipulation.”

Drew snorts. “Her turn, for once,” he says, and Jake laughs, and it’s sweet enough that Drew leans down to kiss him.

“Have you considered, Drew,” Jake says, looking amused, stopping him with a finger against his lips, “Doing this somewhere otherthan a classroom?”

“I love you,” Drew says – words he’s never said before. Not like this. Words he finds he likes the taste of, words that taste like the summer breeze, ocean-salt drying on his lips, like toys he doesn’t even rememberanymore, gunpowder from fireworks. Like then and now and forever, maybe, if it even exists.

Jake’s eyes widen, vibrant and verdant and sweet and delirious like the first day of spring, and Drew thinks he could fall into them, if he let himself.

“Actually,” Jake squeaks, and he laughs,a flush blooming across his cheeks – he’s happy, Drew thinks, warmth spreading through him like Jake is a sunbeam he’s caught in the middle of, “Here’s fine.”

“Is it?” Drew teases, leaning down. Jake meets him halfway, placing a hand on the back of Drew’s head, pulling him in to skim their noses together, making Drew blink.

“Anywhere’s fine,” Jake says, softly, letting his eyes drift shut, “As long as I’m with you.”

And not for the first time, Drew can’t find the words he needs to tell Jake how he feels, and maybe Jake’s the one who’s always been better with words, but Drew thinks that’s never mattered, anyway, because touch is common ground.

So Drew kisses him instead.

[the-jake-payne]

*sighs* I'm sorry for all the horrible mess that comes with dating me

It’s okay, babe. I’ll deal with the mess as long as I get to be with you. And can we talk about “the only one I want to be with”????? :P

[drew-morgan]

Uuuuuh… *coughs* W-what?

[the-jake-payne]

You heard what I said. 

[drew-morgan]

*blushes* Okay, I might have said something like that. It definitely didn’t have a hidden meaning though…

[the-jake-payne]

*grins* Well, good, because you’re the only one I want to be with, too

[drew-morgan]

*smiles* I love you, babe. And don’t listen to Dylan, you’re the most beautiful boy I know :P  and… okay, I kinda did mean it like “you’re the one”, I mean that’s basically the same thing, right? uh… yeah

[the-jake-payne]

Oh... Yeah, I think that’s basically the same thing...

[the-jake-payne]

Nevermind my previous message, congrats, you managed to make Drew dedicated to you, I hope you're really happy. (This isn't over tho :P)

So happy, Dyl, so happy. And it definitely looks like it’s over, tho. 

[dylanpevensie]

Okay, but how did you do it? I mean how did you make him fall for you, like no offense, but I’m totally cuter

[the-jake-payne]

I’m pretty sure I’m cuter, but keep dreaming. And I think I made him fall for me by not constantly chasing after him, unlike you.

[the-jake-payne]

*sighs* I'm sorry for all the horrible mess that comes with dating me

It’s okay, babe. I’ll deal with the mess as long as I get to be with you. And can we talk about “the only one I want to be with”????? :P

[drew-morgan]

Uuuuuh… *coughs* W-what?

[the-jake-payne]

You heard what I said. 

[drew-morgan]

*blushes* Okay, I might have said something like that. It definitely didn’t have a hidden meaning though…

[the-jake-payne]

*grins* Well, good, because you’re the only one I want to be with, too

[the-jake-payne]

*sighs* I'm sorry for all the horrible mess that comes with dating me

It’s okay, babe. I’ll deal with the mess as long as I get to be with you. And can we talk about “the only one I want to be with”????? :P

[drew-morgan]

Uuuuuh… *coughs* W-what?

[the-jake-payne]

You heard what I said. 

[the-jake-payne]

Tbh I just honestly hope you'll tease him to no end for calling you "the one" ok omg. I mean I can so see that omg, he'd probably turn into a pouting mess lol. Hashtag what are friends for :P

Oh yes, I plan on teasing him about that a lot :P

[the-jake-payne]

Nevermind my previous message, congrats, you managed to make Drew dedicated to you, I hope you're really happy. (This isn't over tho :P)

So happy, Dyl, so happy. And it definitely looks like it’s over, tho. 

[the-jake-payne]

ooc: Hey! So I was the one who said they're writing another Drake fic thingy, and I just wanted to say that it's legit, I'm really writing, but it's sooo big?? (and gonna be bigger) You're ok with that? I'm not sure when I'm gonna finish tho (I'm kind of halfway through) It's kinda an AU, but not completely. I would so tell you more, but adfghfj spoilers :P So yeah, that's what I wanted to say. It's probably not gona be that good, but I'm trying :3 k thanks ily

ooc: First of all anon, I’m super sorry for answering this a month and a day after you sent it to me. BUT YES I’M OKAY WITH THAT AND I’M SURE IT’LL BE AMAZING

[the-jake-payne]

Do you even like your cousins? I mean omg poor you?? :P

*shrugs* I like PJ. 

[the-jake-payne]

*sighs* I'm sorry for all the horrible mess that comes with dating me

It’s okay, babe. I’ll deal with the mess as long as I get to be with you. And can we talk about “the only one I want to be with”????? :P

[the-jake-payne]

Ooh, I'm on the edge of my seat rn tbh. :P

No anon, don’t say things like that, it’ll only encourage him :P

[the-jake-payne]

wait, do you think Dylan could be a threat? :P

Yeah, he’s even worse than Jay. And it takes a lot to be worse than Jay.

[dylanpevensie]

As much as I am pleased by the fact that you think I am a potential threat, I doubt I could be worse than Jay. I mean, I definitely won’t force myself on him…

… Yeah, instead I’m gonna make him want to kiss me. 

[the-jake-payne]

...You do realize that he’ll never want to kiss you... right?

[the-jake-payne]

wait, do you think Dylan could be a threat? :P

Yeah, he’s even worse than Jay. And it takes a lot to be worse than Jay.

[the-jake-payne]

Congrats, your dads just did it for the first time (lolol such weird sentence :P)

Drew and I “did it” before my own parents did.... dear god

[the-jake-payne]

Oh 3??? Ok?? And how was the third one more serious? :P

The third one was more serious because she was the one I dated the longest

[the-jake-payne]

Baaaabe! *full-on needy pout*

but babe you changed your hair back I need a moment to process how happy I’m feeling right now

[the-jake-payne]

1) I love how much you love each other, it's so agjjgdshfabg 2) when you two agreed on moving in together, did you mean your own time, like when you go back, or does it apply to this time, too? 3) I'm actually writing a drake story too now, love me

1) I agree anon, it’s totally “agjjgdshfabg” :P

2) I’m over at his house a lot, but nothing is really official, I guess? I don’t know. We never really talked about it

3) I love you so much