Work Text:
While the others partied, they were listening to Lateralus in Scott's dorm room. Low light from the moon peeked out behind dense clouds, illuminating the two men through the smudged window. The tender, grinding pound of the music enveloped the room, but Andy found that he couldn’t focus on Maynard’s vibrant voice at all, the erratic time signatures staple for TOOL syncing up with the turbulent beat of his heart.
They weren’t really talking, listening through the album whole, uncaring for the booze and company their friends were enjoying, the social obligation they’d abandoned in favour of good music and each other’s presence. Andy was sure if it hadn’t been Scott sitting next to him, leaning into the wall of pillows they retreated into, he would’ve been listening to the music, would’ve absorbed it all, would’ve been flicking through the booklet reading the dedications. But because he was here, he was staring at the CD player on the desk, watching the eyes on the CD spin so fast they blur through the clear top, incomprehensible and gleaming, watching him back.
Scott had his eyes closed, Andy could tell without even looking. Had his head leaned back and swaying slightly, following the lead of Adam’s croaking guitar, absorbed. There’s a beauty in his friend that Andy hadn’t been able to find in girls, an authenticity so bright it hurt to look at sometimes, a devotion so strong it drew in everyone around him, the best type of friend a man could want, and the type of unattached man girls swoon over. Somehow Andy had found himself part of those girls, hanging on to Scott’s every word, fumbling over himself to impress him, desperate to hear him laugh, to have him mirror the attraction Andy found deep in his bones.
Scott had never acknowledged it, the burning wanting inside Andy that he was sure was visible to anyone with a keen eye, or anyone who’d look at him for longer than a second. He was sure it was written all over his face, but still Scott remained oblivious. Andy couldn’t blame him, who would suspect their best friend to be a fag? Who could bear to carry the knowledge that your friend fantasises about kissing you every moment you’re together? Ignorance is bliss they say, and boy are ‘they’ right.
When the music got low, purposeful measured silences in-between pounding drums, the soundtrack of the party carried over to them, thrumming in the walls, banging against Andy’s heart and trying to get it back in shape. The song ramped up again, slow and fast simultaneously through Scott’s speakers, nestling itself inside Andy’s veins. The music was intoxicating, or maybe it was just Scott’s presence, and Andy’s head spinned. His arm was pressed up against Scott’s, skin against skin, body hair touching like some kind of human velcro, and Andy wished they had been. Wished they were like human velcro, pressed together and inseparable, wished he could’ve interlocked himself with Scott, wished he could’ve basked in the intimacy he craved. Scott’s eyelashes fanned over his under-eyes, white-tipped from moonlight, making him look kind of ethereal, untouchable. Andy’s fingers itched.
There was a crick in his neck starting up from the awkward way he had turned his head, from the strained gaze he’d laid on Scott’s face. He pondered it for a moment, physical pain accompanying emotional anguish, sorrow unknown to the cause of it, induced through merely existing. It seemed kind of unfair to blame Scott for it, to blame Scott for being oblivious, to blame Scott for the faulty wiring inside Andy’s soul. Andy’s gaze continued to grace downwards, taking every feature on Scott’s face, until his eyes dropped down to his friend’s lips.
The longing in his chest started to hurt again, crick in his neck, prickling on his tongue, and he found himself leaning in closer, helpless. He had thought about this often enough, safe in his own dorm, under his duvet, eyes closed against the world, protected from consequences. He’d thought about the feeling of Scott’s lips, about the soft sigh in the back of his friend’s throat, about the hand that meets him on his shoulder. He’d thought about pushing his tongue past teeth, irregular enough to be human, perfect enough to be Scott’s, he’d thought about pressing his tongue against body-heat warmed metal, thought about the taste of it all.
Thinking about the thinking he’d done made his throat turn dry, guilty pounding of blood in his veins melodic like Justin himself was plucking the strings of his heart. When he swallowed it felt so loud in his own ears that it came as a surprise that Scott didn't budge, didn’t notice. Scott’s lips were just a hair’s width away from his own, and Andy breathed through his nose slow and shallow, trying to keep his proximity hidden, trying to share this shared experience with only himself.
He did some more thinking, fantasising, leaned in impossibly closer, daring himself to take the dive, egged on by dredging guitars and breathless singing. He’d closed his eyes, had tilted his head the right way, when the CD in the player hitched, repeating a measure, jarring and sudden and all wrong in the mesmerising flow it had carved out for itself.
Andy’s eyes flew open before Scott’s, caught the way his friend jerked and the reflex muscles in his eyes shaped his pupil, caught the hitch in his breath as Scott realised how close Andy had gotten to him.
He’d flung himself backwards, nearly tumbled off the bed in a tangle of shaking limbs in an effort to make Scott un-realise what he’d just realised. The music became unbearably loud in the tense of the room, the soundtrack to Andy’s biggest fuck-up of his life, like a choir of told you so ’s laughing at his foolish hoping.
Scott’s mouth flailed a little bit, like he didn’t know what to say, and Andy took it as the sign it was, rolled himself gracelessly off the bed to leave the room. Scott jumped at that too, took in a short breath, pushed the ball of his tongue piercing between his front teeth like he’d always done when nervous, and scooted forward on the bed. “Don’t leave,” his voice was timid and shaken, but his words were sure, and stopped Andy in his tracks.
“At least finish the album,” Scott said, patting the mattress, impact with no sound, that reverberated into Andy’s soul. He nodded. Pressed the rewind button on the CD player. Watched the eyes swirl and swirl. And sat back down on the bed.
Scott sank down into the pillows with him, pulled his legs into a criss-cross. Andy tried not to look at Scott, tried to ignore the way the back of his neck burned with the shame of what he attempted, tried to soak in Scott’s presence like this would’ve been the last time he got to experience it, because that’s just how horrible mistakes like the one Andy made play out.
Scott’s temple came to rest on Andy’s shoulder, tentative and uncertain, featherlight and unbearably warm, and Maynard started singing again.