Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Summer 2009

“Are we ready to get absolutely fucked?”  Cook saunters up to the park bench where Freddie and JJ have been waiting for him.  He’s late, but they won’t care because they’re his best mates and they know how he is, plus he brought something sure to make for an eventful evening. He tosses a baggie of pills to Freddie while chugging the last few gulps of the can of beer he’d been drinking on the way here.  He belches rudely and JJ scrunches his nose in disgust.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to say ‘excuse me’, Cook.” JJ complains, but Cook pays him no mind.  All he sees is Freddie’s expression light up as he eyes up the bag of pills.  This is a good sign, the club is always more exciting when Freddie is willing to get well and truly wasted.  “What even are those?” JJ asks, but when Cook answers he doesn’t even look JJ’s way, it’s not like he’s going to indulge in them.

“MDMA.” He tells Freddie instead with a big, dopey grin on his face.  Freddie smiles back and Cook ignores how that makes his chest flutter, just like he always has to when he sees that smile.

“Looks like we’re gonna get well fucked tonight, then.”  Freddie says, handing the baggie back to Cook.  They both get up and they all start walking towards the club together.  Cook stands between them, putting his arms around their shoulders.

“Tonight’s gonna be fuckin’ mental, lads, one for the ages!” Exaggeration? Likely, but that’s always how it is with Cook, everything has to be to the extreme end of the spectrum.  He’s never just happy, he’s euphoric.  Never angry, but wrathful.  Never sad, but...depressed.  Being alone with his thoughts can be pure agony. He doesn’t have to feel that way when he’s with his friends getting high and dancing, even if he does have to ignore the way Freddie’s lips look when he puts a spliff in his mouth or the way his laugh makes his stomach flutter.

The thing is--Cook has two distinct “voices” in his head.  Not actual voices, he’s not that mental, but two consciousnesses.  One is loud and boisterous, he’s the one who tells Cook that he should take that pill, throw that punch, and that he loves JJ and Freddie.  The other voice is a lot quieter and easy to ignore.  He tells Cook that maybe he shouldn’t take that pill because he could overdose and that he shouldn’t punch someone because he could get arrested or killed.  This is the voice that tells Cook that he loves JJ and that he’s in love with Freddie. Cook pretends he doesn’t hear this voice because it’s simpler that way, but it isn’t always easy to ignore.

“Well I, for one, do not plan on getting ‘fucked’ tonight, regardless of what you two have planned.” JJ shakes his head, he never wants to be in on the action.

“You don’t have to come, I know this isn’t really your idea of fun.” Freddie says, it almost sounds like a warning.  He knows how JJ feels about crowds and loud noises, but he insisted on giving it a go tonight.  He says he doesn't want to look back on all his memories as a teenager and only see him doing things like hunching over his desk putting together model airplanes.  Cook can’t help but agree with JJ on this one, staying up all night learning new magic tricks doth not a memory make.

“Yes I do!  Sneaking into a nightclub is a quintessential teenage rebellion experience that I have to at least try .”  Cook laughs, which makes JJ pout a little. “ What? ”

“Well we’re hardly sneaking. The bouncer will let anyone in with an ID, hardly cares if it looks like you or not.”  Cook produces three fake ID’s with pictures vaguely resembling the trio.  JJ stops in his tracks when he catches a glimpse of the picture of a middle aged mustached man who’s supposed to be him.

“Oh god oh no this is not going to work why would you think this would work, we’re going to get in trouble, or worse, arrested! Or maybe even killed!”  He always has to think of the worst possible scenario, but never seems to take a look at the best one.

Cook rolls his eyes. “Fuckin’ hell, J, it’ll be fine, they only really look at the dates.” 

“It’s alright, JJ,” Freddie says in a calm, reassuring tone.  “I promise nothing bad will happen.”  As if on cue, JJ takes some deep breaths and continues forward with a renewed sense of security.  

Freddie always knows exactly how to calm anyone down, it’s gotten Cook out of trouble more times than he can count.  He’s the only one that can reel him in from one of his moods, when he wants to take one more shot of liquor or fight a man twice his size.  Cook would be absolutely fucking lost without him.  

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The three of them make it into the club without incident despite JJ almost blowing it because the guy can’t tell a lie.  He didn’t even have to say anything at all, but that’s kind of impossible for him.  Freddie ended up having to drag him in while he was still demonstrating the magic trick he concocted to distract the bouncer, which he definitely did not need to do.

They stop at the bar and order three pints then make their way to the bathrooms.  Cook reaches into his pocket and produces the bag of pills, pulling out one for him and one for Freddie.  He shakes the bag at JJ.  “You sure you don’t want in on this?”

He vigorously shakes his head.  “No, nope!  Not happening. Do you even know what stuff like that does to your heart?”  

Cook shrugs and pops a pill into his mouth, swallowing with a long sip of beer.  “Makes my heart feel good, if you ask me. Everything looks, sounds, tastes, and feels better.” He downs the rest of his pint, not bothering to mention how miserable coming down from MDMA is.  He doesn’t want to think about the future Cook and whatever mood he’ll have to deal with tomorrow.  All that matters is the here and the now.

“I think we both know I meant your literal, physical heart.  You know, the one that keeps you alive and stuff.”  JJ’s lip quivers just a little, he’s clearly uncomfortable.  The quiet voice in Cook’s head tells him that he should’ve talked JJ out of this, this is a really bad idea, but he shrugs it off.  Right now he’s not sure if he cares if he dies of a heart attack in a dark club surrounded by hundreds of people, it would be better than dying in his room all alone with nothing but the dark thoughts that plague him when he tries to go to bed sober. 

“It’ll be alright, JJ.”  Freddie says, popping his own pill.  “Cook’s done it loads of times and he’s still kicking, right?”

“Pfft, for now. Let’s check in on him in twenty years and see if he’s still kicking then!” JJ crosses his arms defiantly.

“I think we all know I’ll be long gone before we can study the long term effects my lifestyle had on me.”  Cook laughs, but nobody laughs with him.

“I hate when you say things like that.”  JJ frowns and looks down at the glass of beer he’s been awkwardly holding since they got here.  He never means to hurt JJ, but it’s impossible to avoid.  He’s fragile and Cook is a bull in a china shop, it’s a miracle he hasn’t broken him yet.  If he ever truly broke JJ, he’d never forgive himself.

“This is an absolutely no pressure kinda thing, J, you can tap out whenever you want.”  Freddie breaks the small amount of tension that’s built up with some additional reassurance.  It proves to be just what JJ needed to hear to get himself out of the sweat and puke fragranced toilets and into the club.

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They make their way into the heart of the club.  The music is pulsing and the people on the dance floor are packed like sardines in a can. They decide to keep to the outside for JJ’s sake.  A pretty girl with too much makeup and not a lot of clothes pulls Freddie away to dance, he just laughs and follows her.  As she’s touching and grinding up on him, Cook feels a thick wave of jealousy slosh over him.  It gets harder to ignore those feelings after a few drinks, but JJ snaps him out of it.

“Cook.  I don’t think I like this.”  He says it so fast Cook almost misses it in the noise of the club.  “I don’t like this...I really don’t, it’s too much.  I know we just got here but it’s too much.” He’s being pushed back and forth by drunk clubbers passing by to reach the dancefloor or the bar.

“It’s alright mate, we’ll get you out.” Cook pulls him closer to keep him away from all the strangers invading JJ’s personal space.  He may be an overindulgent asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anything, but even Cook knows when it’s time for JJ to bail.  Plus, it gives him an excuse to take Freddie back from that coked up walking advertisement for cheap lip injections who’s pushing her hands up his shirt.

“Freddie!”  Cooks shouts over the music, but he doesn’t hear.  He waves to get his attention which, thankfully, he notices.  He leaves the girl immediately when he notices JJ’s state, which warms Cook on the inside.  Freddie would never choose a girl over his friends, he could always count on that.

“Let’s get you out of here.” Freddie says, leading JJ towards the exit.  Cook wants to be on the dance floor when the drugs kick in, but it won’t be the same without Freddie and Freddie won’t let loose and have fun until he knows JJ is okay.  

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  JJ says over and over again, covering his ears as they make their way out the exit to the back alley.  He lets out a deep sigh of relief as the music dulls behind the closing door.  “That’s much better. I’m sorry, you’re right, this is NOT my idea of fun AT ALL.”  He starts doing some breathing exercises, which can’t be very effective in an alleyway that smells of trash water and vomit, but he continues nonetheless.   

“It’s alright J, we’ll do something you like next time, alright?”  Freddie reassures him.  He knows JJ feels left out when him and Cook go to parties, but he always makes a point to have a day where they watch JJ’s dull as fuck movies a few days later.  He’s considerate like that.  “Are you okay to get home?”

JJ nods and waves goodbye as he makes his way to the bus stop while Freddie and Cook make their way back around to the clubs front door as the one they exited locks to keep people from sneaking in.  They head to the bar to take some shots of vodka.  Cook got four, but Freddie thinks two shots on top of the molly is “excessive”, so he takes one while Cook downs the other three.  Freddie just rolls his eyes and laughs, he seems to have no plans on stopping him tonight.  Good.

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Things are starting to feel interesting, now.  Every joke is a riot, every song is a symphony.  Every touch from Freddie sends fire through Cook’s body.  They’re dancing now, if you could call it that.  It’s more just a crowd of people jumping around.  Freddie stumbles into his arms, laughing with his head in Cook’s chest.  Between Freddie’s touches and the high he’s currently experiencing, the quiet voice becomes harder to ignore. 

It tells him what he truly wants, the thing that he agonizes over when he’s sober.  Freddie.  It would be so easy to kiss him right now, to know what those lips feel like on his own.  He wonders what it would be like to move those kisses to his neck, to his collarbone, all the way down to his--Cook shakes his head.  He tries to push those thoughts away, but the closer the drugs get to their full effect, the less inclined he is to even try.

Freddie doesn’t leave his side, not even when girls try to pull him away.  He doesn’t even seem to notice them.  As far as the two of them are concerned, they’re the only people in this club right now.  Cook lives for moments like this, moments when he’s made to feel like the center of Freddie’s universe.  He has a way of making everyone feel that way.  He could be friends with anyone, be anyone’s boyfriend, but he’s always stuck by Cook and JJ’s side because he loves them.  Cook just smiles and pulls Freddie into a hug as they start jumping to the beat.

They dance and dance, hard and fast.  They’re covered in sweat by the time Freddie grabs Cook by the wrist and leads him away from the crowded dance floor.  Freddie leans in and for just a split second, he thinks he’ll kiss him.  Much to Cook’s disappointment, he brings his mouth close to his ear to suggest they head out because it’s feeling too hot in here. He shudders at the feeling of Freddie’s breath on his ear and nods in agreement.  He could probably spend all night in this club, but the only person he wants to be near right now is Freddie.

At the bus stop, Freddie lays his head on Cook’s shoulder and closes his eyes.  “See how easy it is to have fun without getting into a fight or fucking someone you’re not supposed to?”  He mumbles, Cook just laughs and says “The night’s still young…”

He nudges Freddie awake and they board the bus.  They stop a few blocks away from Freddie’s house and they start what should be a short walk, but their legs feel like jelly after the bus ride.  As the bus drives off, they laugh and stumble into one another, trying to catch each other’s balance and failing miserably. They fall onto the sidewalk, Freddie skins his elbow and Cook’s ripped his jeans, but that doesn’t stop them from laughing.  When Freddie drops his head into the crook of Cook’s neck, there’s not a single voice in his head that could stop him from doing what he’s about to do.

He leans his head down and Freddie looks up, they’re faces are so close now their noses practically touch.  Cook feels like he’s outside of his own body watching from afar when he presses his lips against Freddie’s.  He’s shocked when Freddie doesn’t pull away, instead he lets him kiss him one more time before lying down on the sidewalk laughing as if Cook had just told him a hilarious joke. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t wound him a little.

He knows this isn’t the type of slip up that would change their friendship, this isn’t the first time Cook has gotten trashed and kissed his best mate on the lips, but it is the first time it had been so intimate.  He just watches Freddie, staring at the sky and laughing.  He wishes he’d kiss him back, just once, but he knows he’ll never have Freddie that way and it hurts so deeply.

Cook brushes the feeling off, though he can feel it lingering somewhere inside him where he stores up all his bad feelings until he finally explodes in some way or another.  He staggers up to his feet and reaches an arm down to help Freddie up, he takes it and the weight of him pulling upwards almost sends them both back to the ground again.  They find their balance and start heading towards Freddie’s place, neither saying a word about the kiss.

They consider crashing in the shed to avoid Freddie’s dad lecturing them, but Freddie says he feels disgusting and needs to change so they sneak as quietly as they can up the stairs to his room.  Cook strips off his sweaty polo the second they arrive and plops himself on the bed.

“ Shoes, Cook!” He just laughs and kicks them off, sending the left one flying in Freddie’s direction.  Freddie just rolls his eyes and peels off his own shirt.  When he starts to unbuckle his belt, Cook puts a pillow over his face to stop himself from staring.  All he can think about is his own hands taking off his shirt and belt, and the things that would follow.  He feels Freddie sink down on the bed next to him, removing Cook’s pillow of shame and putting it under his head.

Cook inches just a little closer, closing the small gap Freddie left when he laid down. He shouldn’t be this close to him, not when he’s still riding a high like this.  Not when the feeling of Freddie’s skin against his own makes his brain all swimmy.  Not when all he can think about is finding a way to feel his lips against his own again.  He doesn’t even realize that he’s been staring at those lips this whole time.

“God your pupils are fucking huge.” Freddie laughs.  “It felt like we’ve been out all night but I’m still rolling, man.”  He closes his eyes and sighs.  “As much as I love hanging out with you, I wish I was with a girl right now…” 

“Why? What can a girl give you that I can’t?”  He asks like it’s a joke, but it’s laced with sincerity.

“Oh fuck off, you know exactly what I mean”  Freddie playfully slaps Cook with his pillow.

“C’mon mate, close your eyes and it’s just the same.”  Cook says, rolling over onto his stomach and grinning wildly at his friend.

“Okay now really fuck off, that’s fucking gay, mate.”  Cook laughs it off pretty easily, but it’s not as easy to ignore those kinds of comments with Freddie as it is with everyone else.

“Not if you’re really fucked and you close your eyes and pretend it’s a girl doing it.”  The fact that Freddie looks like he’s even considering Cook might be right sends shivers of anticipation down his spine.  “Just close your eyes, Freds…”

Freddie stares at him for a while, but eventually closes his eyes.  A wave of panic sets over Cook, but he has to push it aside because this could be his only chance, maybe tonight he can convince Freddie of just how right they could be together like this.  To test the waters, he reaches out and brushes his fingertips down Freddie’s stomach, which elicits a soft sigh from him, a sound Cook let himself imagine for so many years, never thinking he’d actually hear it.  He hovers over him and brushes his lips against his neck, kissing experimentally at first to see how he’ll react.  When he doesn’t make a move to stop him, he lets himself give into this fantasy turned flesh and blood.

He moves his kisses to Freddie’s collarbone, then down to his chest where he brushes his lips over a nipple and he gasps.  His reaction encourages Cook to slide his tongue along it teasingly before moving to the other one.  He’s gotten so wrapped up in the sounds Freddie is making that he doesn’t even realize how hard he’s gotten.  He adjusts himself, worried that if Freddie feels it he’ll be snapped out of whatever fantasies he’s having and push him away.  He can feel his friend’s hard-on pressing urgently against him as he trails soft kisses down his abdomen, but this makes him want to do anything but push him away.

As badly as he wants to touch it, he skips over the bulge that has formed in Freddie’s boxers and brushes his lips along his inner thigh. He moans and grips his sheets, likely trying to keep himself from touching Cook and remembering who he is.  It hurts, but it’s also the only way he’s ever going to have him and he knows it. He can feel the bad feelings later, right now he wants this.  He brings his head back up to the outline of Freddie’s cock that’s been beckoning him like a siren’s call and ghosts his lips along the length of it, gently breathing hot air on it along the way.

Freddie moans with a new intensity that has Cook reaching down to unbutton his own pants, shoving his hand down them urgently.  He brushes his lips down the shaft, wishing there wasn’t a layer of fabric between them, but he’s still too scared Freddie will want to stop if it becomes too real, so he continues to mouth his cock over his boxers.  When he moans and gently bucks his hips up, Cook moans against him despite his best efforts not to.  

This doesn’t scare him away, though.  In fact, Freddie brings his hand and runs his fingers through Cook’s hair, pressing his mouth harder against him, writhing and squirming with the movements of his mouth.  As his breathing grows more erratic, Cook starts working himself faster, pulling himself out for easier access.  It’s risky, but he needs release.  The sensation of Freddie’s cock pressing against his mouth and the visual of his eyes staring down at him, pupils blown from both the drugs and arousal, send him closer and closer to the edge.

His eyes are actually fucking open and he’s staring down at Cook, yet his hand is still clutching his hair and he’s still grinding himself against his mouth.  It’s all too much knowing that he’s watching him and is still turned on.  He moans against Freddie’s cock and presses his hand against his chest as he cums hard, nuzzling his face into Freddie’s thigh.  He hears Freddie let out a higher pitched moan than before and when Cook looks up he’s staring at the ceiling, panting, his cum spattered down his thigh, wetting his boxers.  It’s the hottest thing Cook has ever seen and he plans to save that visual in his memory for all eternity, but he wishes he could forget what happens next.

Freddie’s previously sleepy eyes, hooded with arousal, shoot open as he pulls his hands away from Cook and stands up.  “Shit, shit, shit. ” he says, turning away to pull off his boxers, using them to clean himself up.  Cook wipes his own hand on the blanket since he’s already soiled it anyway.  “This was too fucking far.” He says, grabbing a pair of sweats off the ground and pulling them on.

Cook discreetly buttons up his pants and stares down at the floor for a long time while Freddie rants about everything they shouldn’t have done.  He had expected this to happen, but that was before Freddie saw him, touched him, watched him jerk off and still came anyway.  It gave him a false sense of hope that maybe he wasn’t pretending, maybe he actually wanted him back.

The quiet voice is there now, trying to convince Cook that Freddie is just confused and embarrassed, that he still loves him and he’s still his best mate.  The other voice is always louder, though, and right now it’s telling Cook that Freddie hates him now, that he should be ashamed and disgusted with what he’s done.  His eyes start to blur and he rubs his eyes before any tears can fall.  He turns away and grabs his shirt, putting it on inside out.  He can’t find his shoes, but he’s suddenly feeling too suffocated to try to look for them.  He walks out and Freddie doesn’t even try to stop him.

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Once he’s outside walking barefoot down the sidewalk, the tears start to fall.  He can’t stop them, he’s never been able to.  He’s ruined everything now.  Like Freddie says, they went too far.  Things will never be the same now and it’s all his fault.  The gentle fall of tears turns into full blown sobs and he wants to do absolutely anything to forget this feeling.  He reaches into his pocket and clutches the bag of pills.  There’s more than enough left to erase these feelings permanently if he’d like.  

This is why he never wants to be alone.  He can’t handle feelings like this on his own, they’re so overwhelming he feels like he might burst. He walks and walks until his bare feet feel like they’ll fall off, but he finds himself at JJ’s house.  His bedroom light is still on, so he must be up.  He picks up a few small stones and starts tossing them at the window.

The window opens.  “Cook? What are you doing here?”  He’s not mad, but he’s clearly confused.  JJ’s house isn’t exactly Cook’s first choice to crash at when he’s fucked, that’s always been Freddie’s.

“I can’t be alone right now.”  He says, and JJ knows what he means.  He’s the only one who really gets how dark things can get. 

He waits at the door until JJ comes to unlock it.  “Just keep it down, my mum’s sleeping.”  Cook just nods and heads upstairs to JJ’s room.  “You and Freddie didn’t have a fight...did you?” Cook just frowns and stares at the ground, which brings attention to his bare feet. “Wait, what happened to your shoes?”

Cook just shrugs and grabs a pillow from JJ’s bed.  He throws it on the floor and lies down.  “It’s gonna be fine, probably.”

“Um, probably? ”

“We’re gonna be fine, J.”  JJ seems relieved, at least he believes it.  

Cook can lie to his friend, but he can’t lie to himself.  Things are changed now and they’ll never be the same again.  He closes his eyes, hoping sleep will wake him up from this nightmare.  He falls asleep with a heavy feeling in his heart while JJ rambles on about a new type of glue he’s trying out for his model planes, wishing his only problem right now was what brand of adhesive works best.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Cook comes to with a pounding headache and a familiar feeling that he did something incredibly fucking stupid last night.  The memories trickle in at first.  Escorting JJ out of the club, taking some shots, dancing with Freddie...then the floodgates open and it all comes crashing back to him.  He had the kind of night with Freddie that he always fantasized about, he should be absolutely fucking thrilled.  Unfortunately, the only part of that night that’s lingering in his thoughts is the way his best mate, the person he loves more than anyone, looked at him afterwards.  The regret and shame settle into Cook’s heart the way he saw those same feelings flash across Freddie’s eyes last night.

He reluctantly sits up, cursing his bladder for forcing him to even be awake right now. He just wants to go back to sleep and wake up in a different life where he isn’t a piece of shit who is in love with his best mate and ruined one of the only good things in his life because he was high and horny.  He groans as he stands, the floor he slept on last night did not do his aching body any favors.  It honestly feels like he barely makes it to the toilet alive.  After he relieves himself he splashes some cold water in his face, leaning his head under the sink to gulp down some water to quench his dry mouth.  He braces himself on the counter and stares at himself in the mirror, his bloodshot eyes and hair greased with sweat from the night before.  Despite the way he talks about himself to everyone else, he fucking despises the man he sees staring back at him.

“Cook?” JJ knocks on the door.  “Are you okay?”  

“Yeah-” He tries to reply but his voice is still so hoarse from sleep.  He clears his throat.  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”  He definitely is not fine, he’s on the edge of spiraling and the only person who could talk him down probably never wants to see his stupid fucking face again.

“Okay just...if you do puke please be mindful about it, you know I can’t stomach that kind of stuff.”  Cook doesn’t plan on puking, but if he doesn’t find a dark place to lay down and feel sorry for himself soon he just might.

Cook opens the door to find JJ rocking on his heels, nervously fidgeting with his hoodie strings. “Mind if I shower here? I’m seriously fuckin’ foul right now.”  JJ nods and opens a cabinet to hand him a towel.

“Before you do…”  He trails off, staring at his feet.  “What happened with you and Freddie last night?” Cook freezes, he has no clue how to even begin to answer that question, or even if he should at all.  How will he explain the tension between him and Freddie to JJ?  He fucked up really bad and he’s terrified that things will never be the same, but he can’t tell his friend that.  If JJ catches wind of things changing too much, he’ll have a freak out of epic proportions.

“It was nothin’, alright? Just took it a bit too far, you know how it gets with us sometimes.” JJ just nods as Cook shuts the door.  He strips down and starts the shower, stepping in before it gets hot and lets the cold water try to wake him up.  He scrubs himself down with some shower gel and shampoos his hair, but he can’t wipe away the aching feeling in his chest, even when he turns the water up so hot it turns his chest an angry shade of red. 

He keeps thinking back on what he said to Freddie last night, about closing his eyes and pretending it’s a girl doing it.  This is something he’s done many times himself, except he’d think of Freddie when he was with some girl.  He always feels so deeply empty and alone after those kinds of nights, did Freddie feel that same emptiness as he laid in bed last night?  He slides down so he’s sitting on the shower floor while the hot water rains down on him.  He lays his head back and closes his eyes, desperately wishing that if he concentrates hard enough, he’ll be able to go back in time and have a redo of last night.  

Unfortunately, life isn’t a sci-fi movie that turns the shower into a time machine and when he opens his eyes he’s still sitting on the floor of JJ’s tub, agonizing over one stupid fucking mistake he made while his skin roasts under the steaming water.  He can feel tears stinging his bloodshot eyes when he hears the sound of JJ’s doorbell downstairs.  He doesn’t really think anything of it until he hears his mum shout up “JJ, FREDDIE’S HERE!”

Shit.  Cook isn’t ready for this, he thought he’d have more time to come up with the right words to say to make Freddie forgive him.  Maybe he’s calmed down now, maybe he doesn’t even remember what happened and they can both move on from this shit.  There’s no escaping this confrontation, there isn’t even a window for him to sneak out of to avoid it.  In this moment, Cook wishes he could make himself shrink down until he’s small enough to swirl down the drain with all the water.  How can he face Freddie when he feels like he could implode at any moment?  He scrambles to shut the water off, as if that will make him invisible.

He steps out of the shower and presses his ear against the door, a puddle forming at his feet from his wet body.  He can’t actually hear anything at all, just some low mumblings and the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.  Fuck.  He rests his forehead against the door, he can practically hear the pulse of his brain pounding on his skull, punishing him for what he did to his body last night with drink and drugs.  He takes a deep breath and grabs the towel to dry himself off, using it to wipe up the puddle he left when he’s done.  He pulls on his pants and gives his polo a sniff before deciding it isn’t something he’d like to put back on again, instead he grabs one of JJ’s hoodies he must’ve left in here at some point that seems clean enough and pulls it over his head.

This is the moment Cook has to decide he doesn’t care.  He simply cannot care. He knows this isn’t really how it works and that everything will come crashing down sooner rather than later, but he can’t afford to let Freddie see how hurt he is.  Maybe if he brushes it off he can convince him that this was all just a laugh and they can go back to being friends now, just like they do every time Cook drunkenly kisses him on the lips.  When he pushes the door open to JJ’s room, Freddie is there, leaning against his dresser holding Cook’s shoes.

“You left these.” He says, so fucking casually as if nothing at all happened between them last night.  Not that it matters, because Cook doesn’t fucking care.

“Thanks.”  Cook responds curtly, reaching for his shoes and paying extra care not to let his hands make any contact with Freddie’s.  They now stand across from one another in a strained silence, which is clearly making JJ extremely uncomfortable.

“You guys…” He pleads.  “Whatever happened I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.  Nobody died, right?”  Another silence, another cause for concern for JJ.  “... right? ”

“No, J, nobody died.”  Freddie says, “We’re just really hungover is all.”  

“So we should get breakfast!” JJ hops to his feet excitedly as if he’s found the magical solution to breaking the unexplainable tension between his two best mates.  Freddie just pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.  “But maybe some water and some tylenol first, I’ll go get some!”  He scampers off in search of a cure, leaving Freddie and Cook alone.

After a long pause to make sure JJ was out of hearing range, Freddie looks Cook in the eyes for the first time since last night.  “So are we gonna talk about it or are you just gonna do what you always do and ignore it until it blows up in your face?”

“I’ll go with the second option.”  Cook says without a moment's hesitation, causing Freddie to roll his eyes as he reaches down to put down his shoes, feigning a complete disregard for the situation.

“Fuckin’ hell Cook, you can’t just--” 

“I can’t just what?  You said it yourself, I took it too far last night.  You were right, you’re always fucking right, now just forget about it, yeah?”  

JJ is standing in the doorway with two bottles of water and a package of tylenol, which Cook takes on his way out.  “Thanks, but I think I’ll be skipping breakfast.”  He says, popping the pills out of the box and downing them with a generous sip of water.  He’s probably going to need a lot more than tylenol to get through this, though.

“Wait, no! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it’ll make you feel better--” 

“Let him go, he’s not good company when he’s like this anyway.”  Cook hears Freddie say as he starts down the stairs.  Sure, he’s right, but that doesn’t make it feel any better.

He can feel the rage boiling inside him now, prickling beneath his skin.  It’s begging to be unleashed and it gets exceedingly harder to resist knocking shit off the walls to feel some form of reprieve from this feeling.  He slams the front door on the way out, but it doesn’t give him any sense of relief.  He wants to hurt Freddie the way he hurt him.  A quiet and logical voice in his head is trying to talk him down. You don’t want to hurt Freddie, you love him, you never want anything bad to happen to him, but he’s not listening.  Instead, he finds himself walking through his best mate’s garden into their shed. 

Despite there being a perfectly good punching bag to his right, his first instinct is to pick up a box full of random odds, ends, and car parts and throw it across the shed, sending bits and pieces flying.  He grabs a baseball bat and knocks the mirror of the dilapidated car that’ll never run again.  He stares at the picture of the three of them, two faces that usually bring him back down to earth, but right now all he sees is red.  He throws the baseball bat at it, but it doesn’t make contact and just rolls under a chair.  He gets on his knees to pull it back out, which feels very ridiculous given how urgently he wants to break things right now, but as he reaches his hands under the chair he finds something that’ll be a lot more helpful to him than beating the shit out of inanimate objects--a bottle of whiskey. 

He lets out a laugh laced with hysteria as he pops open the bottle, taking a lengthy swig of it, then another, then another.  If Freddie was here he would’ve told him to take it easy after the first sip, but he’s not so Cook has to be demanded by his burning, empty stomach to stop before he vomits all over himself.  He’s so caught up in his own shit he doesn’t even hear the door open.

“Freddie’s not here.”

He jumps.  “Fuckin’ hell, Karen.  You can’t sneak up on someone like that.”  He looks for the cap to close up the bottle, but it’s nowhere to be found.  Guess he’ll just have to drink it all.  No, don’t you fucking do that.  He takes another sip.

“It’s my fucking house, I’ll sneak up on you if I want.  You’re just lucky I didn’t think you were a robber or something and shot you.”  She crosses her arms and Cook just laughs, she’s tried to act like tough shit around him since they were kids, but it never hits the way she wants it to.  This elicits a childish foot stomp from her, which only makes him laugh harder. She’s hard to take seriously when she’s wearing pyjama bottoms with little bunnies on them and a pink fluffy robe. “Freddie’s not here.”  She repeats, more firmly this time.

Cook’s smile slowly fades away.  “Yeah, good.”  He says, taking another swig from the bottle before she snatches it away from him.

“Are you guys fighting?”  She asks, attempting to take a Cook-level swig from the bottle which just leaves her in a brief coughing spell which would normally amuse him, but he can’t force himself to be in the mood for laughing anymore.

“Somethin’ like that.”  He says, toying with the strings of the hoodie he’s wearing.  Karen walks over and sits herself on the floor next to him.

“I’m mad at him too.”  She says, taking a much more dignified sip from the almost empty bottle this time.  “He thinks I’m a brat.”

“Well, you are a brat.”  Cook teases, earning himself a half-hearted smack on the chest that warms his mood just a bit, but that might also be the alcohol doing that. 

“I know I can be a bitch sometimes but…”  She frowns and leans her head back against the chair.  “He’s just wrong sometimes, okay?  He can be so self righteous, like he’s the only one who can be hurting.”  She bites her lips, holding in some tears that have probably been waiting a long time to come out.  “When mum died, nobody was looking at him to take on the role, were they?”  She wipes her eyes with the sleeves of her robe and takes a deep breath.  “But you probably think I’m just a whiny brat, right?”

“I don’t think that...not always, at least.”  He playfully nudges her shoulder with his.  “You’re cool sometimes, especially when you cover for Freddie when he has to bail me out of some dumb shit I’ve got myself into.”  This makes her smile, which Cook is grateful for.  It always feels better to do the right thing and say the right words to make someone happy, but most of the time he fails miserably at it.  

“You can be sweet, you know.  Why can’t you be like this all the time?”  She asks, leaning her head on his shoulder.  She reaches for his hand and holds it in hers.  It feels innocent enough, Cook isn’t used to such gentle displays of affection so he likes to take what he can get in that department, but he should really be stopping her now as she swings her legs over to straddle his lap.  She kisses him once and pulls away to see if she should keep going, this is another moment when he should really be stopping this.

Instead, he kisses her back and he has no idea why he can’t fucking stop.  He should stop when she drops her robe, when she pulls his hoodie over his head, when she takes his hands and places them on her boobs.  It’s not because he’s overwhelmed with arousal because that ship has hardly taken off at all save for a barely noticeable reaction to the friction, but because it just feels so damn good to be wanted.  He can’t resist it, he finds it so consuming and addictive, more than any drug on the market.  When she pulls her tank top over her head, he feels the urge to close his eyes or look away.  She’s suddenly Freddie’s sister again and there’s a voice screaming to be heard in the back of his mind telling him just how fucked up this is, how he doesn’t even really want this, and how angry Freddie would be if he found out.

He still doesn’t stop her when she unbuttons his pants, or when she slides her hands into them and finds him nowhere near hard.  “Is something wrong?”  She asks, gently running her nails against his chest while her other hand is busy trying to get his cock in working order.

“It’s just...I’m just drunk, alright?”  And we should stop. “Give it a minute.”  He says, kissing her deep and slow, trying to imagine it’s Freddie the way he does when he kisses other girls.  He thinks this ought to be easier with her, but he finds it more difficult to detach from Karen so easily.  He’s concentrating so hard he hardly hears the door of the shed open up.

“OH NO, OH MY GOD.”  It’s JJ, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears as if he could erase what he’s just seen.

Karen scrambles to put on her robe.  “Oh my god JJ, have you heard of fucking knocking?”  Her voice is shaky as she grabs her tank top, refusing to look at Cook, which reminds him too much of last night for his liking.  On her way out, she pulls JJ’s hand away from his ear.  “If you tell Freddie I will kill you.” She says, storming out of the shed and back to the house.

“JJ…”  Cook says, buttoning up his pants and retrieving the hoodie.  “JJ it really is not what it looks like, alright? Okay, it’s a bit what it looks like but it wasn’t going anywhere.”  He looks like he’s about to cry as he stares at his feet.  Just another person so disgusted with Cook that he can’t even look at him.

“Then what was it?”  His voice is small and cracked.  “Is this what you and Freddie were fighting about?”

“No, not at all, mate, I swear.”  Now there’s tears in his eyes as well. He puts his hands on JJ’s shoulders.  “I fuckin’ swear it, alright?”  He slurs his words a bit, suddenly feeling pretty dizzy now that he’s on two feet.

“Are you drunk? It’s not even noon yet, what-”  Cook cuts him off.

“You cannot tell Freddie, alright?  If he finds out about this he’ll fuckin’ kill me.”  JJ still won’t look at him.  “ Alright? Freddie can’t fuckin’ find out about this.”

“You know I’m no good at lying.”  He says, finally looking up at him.

“You don’t have to lie, mate, nothin’ happened I swear it.  There’s no lie to tell.  It was a stupid mistake, it doesn’t have to be the end of the Three Muskateers, alright?”  Cook stares at JJ, pleading with every ounce of his being that he can keep this one secret.

“Okay.  But only because I hate when you guys fight and I don’t want any more conflict.”  He says reluctantly.  “But Freddie will probably be here soon.  We were looking for you, you’re lucky I was the one that made it to the rendezvous point first.”

“You guys were looking for me?”

“Why are you so surprised, you’re our friend and we were worried about you.”  JJ shifts uncomfortably.  “Freddie was worried you might end up hurting yourself, he said you never come down easy from MDMA.”  To be quite honest, Cook doesn’t come down easy from anything.  The only solution is to just always be under the influence of something or another.

Cook sits down on a chair, feeling nauseous from the heavy wave of guilt that’s just washed over him.  Even when he acts like such a monumental fuck up, his mates seem to be there to help him back up.  They ought to leave him down some day, just to teach him a lesson.  Maybe then he’d learn to be a good friend like JJ and Freddie instead of an infinite void of wasted space like he is now.

“You found him?”  Freddie steps into the shed, briefly taking in the mess Cook made of the place before turning his attention towards him.  “What the fuck did you do in here?”  He accidentally kicks the mirror he’d knocked off the car when he steps forward.  “Oh, that’s just fucking great, Cook, is there anything else you’d like to smash?”

“I’d like to smash your fuckin’ face right now, for starters.” Freddie just rolls his eyes because he knows damn well Cook would never lay a hand on him, he’s gotten close but he’s never been able to throw a punch at him or JJ.

“Alright, that’s ENOUGH.”  JJ yells, which is enough to startle the both of them. “You two are not leaving this shed until you’ve worked it out.”  He walks out, slamming the door behind him.

After a long pause, Freddie turns to leave. “Well that’s not fucking happening.”  he says, but when he tries to push the door open, it doesn’t budge.  He shakes the handle violently and throws his shoulder against it, but it remains closed.  “What the fuck?  How did he even-” He gives it one last push before ultimately giving up and throwing himself down in the car, crossing his arms and pointedly ignoring Cook’s presence. 

“Guess you’re gettin’ that talk after all, huh Freds?”  Cook laughs and hands him the remainder of the whiskey bottle, which he downs in seconds.

“Alright, Cook. Let’s talk.”

Chapter Text

For someone who is constantly getting into trouble for running his mouth, Cook hates to talk.  He finds himself unable to shut the fuck up about almost everything until shit gets serious, then he shuts down.  Having a conversation about his emotions is something he’s simply never learned how to do.  His entire life has been on a spectrum of either ignoring problems until they go away or kicking his problems shit in.  He doesn’t think either of those strategies are going to work with Freddie, but it isn’t stopping him from making an effort to keep his mouth shut and not look his way even though he can feel him staring him down from across the shed.  

“Why’d you kiss me like that?”  Freddie asks, breaking the tense silence that’s inserted itself between them.

Cook just laughs.  “Well that was hardly the most scandalous act of the night, was it?”  His smile fades fast when he sees flashes of Freddie’s shame again as he stops looking at Cook and instead plays ideally with a loose thread on his t-shirt.

“Yeah but it’s how it started, innit?”  A small portion of his shirt starts to fray from him messing with the thread.  

“What of it?  It’s not like I haven’t done it before, I was just high is all.  You know how I get, Freds, it’s really not--”

“Yeah you’ve kissed me, but not like that. ” It takes some effort for Cook not to visibly wince.  He knows that kiss was more than he usually gives, but it didn’t seem like Freddie noticed at the time.  “That wasn’t just some drunken smack on the lips, it was fuckin’ deliberate. ”

“It’s always deliberate when I kiss you.”  Cook replies rather impulsively, the alcohol chipping away at his defenses.  He hates how astonishingly small he sounds right now.  “Was just harder pretending it wasn’t last night.” Freddie is the only boy he’s ever felt safe kissing.  The only boy he kissed that wasn’t his best mate left him with twelve sutures on his head, two broken ribs, and a deep purple bruise on his sense of self worth. It’s why he’s stuck with girls, at least they don’t put him in the hospital when they don’t want to be kissed by him.

His chest is really fucking aching after that confession, like he just ripped it open and let everything pour out on the floor for Freddie to see.  It had been so few words, but for him it was years worth of things left unsaid, safe behind the walls of Cook’s heart.  “Can you please just fuckin’ say somethin’, mate?”  He pleads as Freddie’s prolonged silence continues to poke more and more holes in his battered ego while Cook’s eyes pool up with all the tears he’s needed to shed that can no longer be kept at bay.  “ Please don’t hate me now, Freds, I can’t...I-I-”  He chokes back a sob and buries his face in his hands.  “I can’t have you fuckin’ hating me, not you. ”

Freddie’s continued silence sends him into a panic.  He can’t breath, like his heart broke too much and his lungs decided they were too busy assisting with the sobbing to offer any relief.  He’s never felt more humiliated in his entire fucking life, and he’s had his fair share of indignity in his time.  Here he is, like a cracked windscreen shattered by a stray pebble, while Freddie has nothing to fucking say.  Cook nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels an arm wrap around his shoulder.  He’d been so caught up in his own shit, he hadn’t even noticed him come over.

“I don’t hate you.”  He says, pulling him closer into an embrace that sets off another round of ugly, mortifying sobs from Cook.  “I’m not gonna hate you, alright?”  While Freddie’s voice is usually all it takes to break him out of something, it isn’t until he leans down and presses his lips delicately against Cook’s that he feels the tides of his breathing start to shift back to normal. Cook prepares for the inevitability of him pulling away immediately, but instead he deepens the kiss, running his finger tips down his jaw in a way that makes his mind and body swim.  Before he can even think of kissing him back, there’s a rap at the door and Freddie quickly pulls away, the air around him feels suddenly cold without his body so close.

“Have you made up? Are you ready to be let out now?”  JJ’s muffled voice says from behind the door.

“Yes.”  Says Freddie, at the same time Cook says “No”, he wasn’t ready for that moment to end at all.

“Those are two very conflicting answers but Karen says I can’t loiter in your house anymore because she has a dance thing tonight and needs to practice undisturbed and I am rather lonely.”  He opens the door, throwing aside the plank of wood he must’ve used to keep it locked.  “Please tell me we’re ready for breakfast now, I’m starving.”

“I dunno, mate…” Cook says, becoming all too aware of the queasy feeling that’s developed in his stomach.

“You don’t get to say no, all you’ve put in your body today is half a bottle of whiskey.”  Freddie gets up to leave, motioning for Cook to follow.

-

After making a stop for Cook to puke all the contents of his stomach up into some poor stranger’s bushes, they make it to the cafe and have an uneventful breakfast which does indeed make him feel a lot better, at least in the physical sense.  Afterwards, they part ways with JJ and start the walk back to Freddie’s house with a lot of things left unsaid between the two of them.

“I just need you to know...I’m not gay, alright?”  Freddie says, Cook just stares at the ground and starts making a game out of kicking a stone to distract him from this inevitable confrontation.  “ Alright? ” He says again.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, me neither, okay?”  He replies, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I like girls, I really like girls.”

“Me too.”  Cook says, which isn’t exactly a lie.  He likes a lot of things about girls, he thinks they’re pretty and smell nice, it's just the fact that it doesn’t get him hard that complicates things.

“Just to reiterate...I don’t like guys.”

“Okay well that’s not what you said.”

“I said I liked girls.”

“Not the same as not liking guys, is it?  You can like both, you know.”  

“Do you? Like both?”

Cook stops now, kicking his stone out into the street.  “Doesn’t seem like any of your fuckin’ business who I fuck, mate.  If you don’t like guys why’d you kiss me back there?”  

Freddie rolls his eyes. “The fuck do you mean it’s not any of my business?  You practically take out an ad in the post when you get laid, you’re not exactly private about your sex life.”  He lowers his voice when some elderly women walk by, shaking their heads.  “And I kissed you because you were fucking losing it, I didn’t know how else to help.”

“Yeah, alright.”  Cook says, pushing away the sour feeling their conversation has had on his stomach and continuing his walk.  It’s not that he thought that kiss was some grand proclamation of requited love or anything, but he thought it might’ve been more than a panic move.  He thought maybe Freddie might be questioning things, that there was a chance that all of this could really happen.  In short, Cook is an idiot.

“Can we just go back to mine, smoke up, and watch something stupid on youtube?  Like we always do?”  So Cook’s heart can ache every time he sees Freddie smile?  So his skin can go hot when Freddie lazily drapes his leg over his own?  So he can go home with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach thinking about how the only person he will ever love can’t feel the same way?

“Sure.”  Is all he has to say in reply.

-

They smoke up in the shed and head up to Freddie’s room where they sit together on his bed with a tiny, precarious space between their bodies.  They lie down next to each other, Freddie has his laptop propped up against his knees and they’re entranced by some video about how to blow a glass elephant, something neither of them plan on doing any time soon, but it’s oddly fascinating nonetheless. 

“Hey, Freddie?”  Cook turns to face him, he still has eyes fixated on the laptop screen and just lets out a small ‘hm?’.  “How do you know?”  

Freddie sighs and turns to face him, the glass blowing video still playing.  “How do I know what?”

“That you’re not into guys.”  He just rolls his eyes in response and turns his attention back to the video.  “C’mon, you’ve never been curious?”  He doesn’t know why he’s asking, he supposes he’s just holding onto a little bit of hope that his instincts were right, that watching him last night and kissing him this morning weren’t just flukes.  He’s also overindulged in the spliff a bit, which makes him very stupid.

“I think my curiosity has been well sated, thank you very much.” 

“Has it now?” Cook reaches over and takes the laptop, with some protest from Freddie.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Cook, what are you looking up?”  He runs his hands down his face, a mix of frustration and embarrassment, but he doesn’t make a move to take the computer back.

“Nothin’ wrong with a couple of curious lads watching some adult film together.”  Cook grins as Freddie groans.  “C’mon now, it’s not like we haven’t watched it together before.”

“That was different.”

“How so?”  Cook opens a private browser and starts typing in the website into the search bar, Freddie just covers his eyes with his hands as if they’re about to watch a terrifying horror movie.

“Because it was normal shit.”

“If by normal you mean ‘not gay’, I seem to recall there were a few lesbian clips mixed in there, mate.”  Cook grins and scrolls through the homepage that he’ll never admit is familiar to him.

“That doesn’t count.”

“Doesn’t it?  Those girls seemed pretty fuckin’ gay.”  He turns and sees Freddie has opened his fingers a bite to peek through.  “I think it’s only fair we give every team a chance to be represented, yeah?”  He clicks the first video he sees that doesn’t seem too outlandish, just some guys in the shower together jerking each other off.

“Fuckin’ hell, Cook.  Why do I let you rope me into weird shit?”

“Because I’m your best mate and secretly you know you’ll kinda like it.” Cook responds, wearing a lazy grin that feels permanently plastered to his face when he’s high, which is almost always. Freddie lets his hands fall back to his side and reluctantly turns his attention to the video.

He’s well aware he’s being fucking stupid right now, but he doesn’t feel like he’s really in control of it all the time.  Sometimes he’s too good at forgetting the bad feelings, sometimes he thinks he might’ve buried them a little too deep so he just keeps making the same dumb mistakes over and over again.  He doesn’t care to think about that right now, though.  The weed has him feeling deeply warm inside his chest, a stark contrast to the chill he had in his heart during his brief moment of sobriety this morning.  When he turns and sees Freddie watching the video, his breathing just slightly more labored than usual, he starts to feel warm some place much lower.

The men in the video are making out now, their cocks are hard and pressing against each other as they kiss, but Cook isn’t interested in that.  He’s watching the way Freddie’s chest rises and falls, the way he just squirmed a bit to adjust himself, the way his eyes follow the guys hand when he reaches down to jerk the other man off.  Cook drops his hand down lightly to rest on Freddie’s thigh.  He jumps a little at first, but soon relaxes under his touch.  He brushes his knuckles against his leg, careful not to go too high too soon.  Freddie reaches over and shuts the laptop, tossing it onto a pile of clothes next to his bed.

“I don’t think this is the best idea.”  Freddie says, but Cook is more interested in the bulge that he can see forming in his jeans.  “I don’t want anything to change…”

Cook sighs and sits up, pulling his knees up to his chest and concealing his own erection, not entirely sure if it’s a good idea to have that on display right now.  Freddie sits up next to him, his long legs splayed out across the bed.

“Things don’t have to change, really.”  Cook says “We can still just be mates just with some...added benefits, you know?”  Freddie looks down, contemplating.  “It’s nothin’, alright?” But you don’t want it to be nothing, he tells himself, but he just as easily ignores himself too.

“Okay…”  Freddie says, taking a deep breath.

“Now, I’d really like it if you kissed me again.”  Cook smiles, testing him to see if he’s really down for this.  To his surprise, Freddie actually leans in and presses a rather chaste kiss on his lips.  “Not like that…”  He kisses him again, this time so deep Cook feels like he’s drowning in it.

“Like that?”  He asks, Cook just nods and pulls his face back in to kiss him again, relishing in the feeling of his lips against his own.  

In case he never gets to kiss him like this again, he wants to make sure their lips are touching as long as humanly possible.  He falls back onto the bed as Freddie pushes forward, but they never lose contact.  He pushes up Freddie’s t-shirt and he takes the hint, pulling it over his head.  Cook sits up and pulls off the hoodie he’s been wearing and throws it off the bed, not wanting to throw away any time not kissing.  Their tongues touch occasionally now and his body feels like it’s on fire when their bare torsos make contact.  He reaches to unbuckle Freddie’s belt, fumbling a little before finally freeing it and undoing the button of his jeans.  He unzips them and wastes no time at all sliding his hand down them now that there’s enough space for it,  Freddie moans into his mouth which causes him to make a small sound himself.

Freddie rolls over onto his back and pushes his jeans off along with his boxers,  Cook props himself up but he’s pushed right back down as their lips crash together again.  He reaches down to take Freddie’s cock in his hand and slowly works his hand up and down the shaft, his touch delicate and teasing.  Freddie nuzzles his face into the crook of his neck, kissing and moaning into it.  With just a little more pressure, he has him thrusting slowly into his touch, his light kisses occasionally turning into gentle bites, the sensation going straight to his cock in an intense way he’s never felt before with another person.  Some of those bites will surely leave a mark, but he’s never given a shit about things like that anyway.

The sounds he’s making grow louder and more frequent, encouraging Cook to work him faster, squeezing just a little harder, but Freddie reaches down to stop Cook’s hand.  For a moment, he thinks he’s taken it too far again and he’s about to be rejected again, but he just says “I’m too close, I don’t wanna cum yet.” And pulls Cook’s arm above his head, pinning it there to keep him from reaching back down, which does a lot more for him than he’d expect.

Freddie starts to kiss down his neck, down to his collarbone, the way Cook did to him last night.  When he gets to one of his nipples, he takes it between his teeth and grinds it gently between them, which sends Cook spinning. As much as he wants to watch what’s happening, he involuntarily leans his head back and closes his eyes, running his fingers through Freddie’s hair and holding it tight as he licks and kisses him all down his body.  When he gets to the bulge in his pants, he brushes his lips against it first before kissing that, too.  Cook looks down and sees him there, lips pressing kisses along the length of his cock through his pants, staring up at him with those big brown eyes full of arousal and he knows. He can deny it all day long, but it’s clear as fucking day right now--Freddie wants him.  He really wants him.

“Fuckin’ hell, Freddie…”  He says, though it comes out sounding more like a moan.  Freddie pulls his pants off, throwing them off somewhere.  Cook briefly hopes this ends better than last time, because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to track any of his clothes down this time, let alone his shoes.  He looks down at him and Cook suddenly feels very exposed and vulnerable, but Freddie just runs his fingers down his chest and stomach, stopping just above their destination. 

Freddie continues trailing down, cautiously brushing just the tips of his fingers against the base all the way up to the head, watching Cook to gauge his reaction.  He sees the gears turning in his head and reaches over to his nightstand, reaching deep into the top drawer.  To Cook’s surprise, he pulls out a small bottle of lube.

“Well aren’t we prepared?”  Cook grins and puts his hands behind his head.  Freddie smiles and squirts some in his hand, warming it up before taking Cook in his hand again, his grip slick and warm now.  “ Fuck. ” Is all he can say as the fire in his stomach grows stronger with each pump of his hand, the sensation a million times more intense than he's used to when he's with a girl.  He's caught off guard when he feels himself falling over the edge so fast.  “Fuck, fuck I’m gonna--”  But the contact is gone. “ No, Freddie, I-”

“Not yet.”  He says, leaning down to kiss him softly on his forehead.  The fire in his stomach is replaced with an entire fucking swarm of butterflies.  He can’t be feeling like that with Freddie, not when he told him that they don’t have to be anything more even if they do this, but he can’t help it.  I love you, he wants to say it so fucking bad that he’s worried it might slip out at any second. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

He’s snapped out of his dangerous thoughts when Freddie grabs the lube again and starts working some onto his own cock, which is now the new hottest thing Cook has ever seen in his fucking life.  He could watch him do this all day long, but he leans down and kisses him on the lips again, nipping softly at his bottom lip.  Cook reaches up and tangles one hand in his hair, the other grabbing ahold of Freddie’s waist and pulling him closer so their cocks are touching, eliciting low moans from the both of them.  He’s never felt this close to a single person before, it’s nearly overwhelming.

When Freddie reaches down and takes both of them in his hand, Cook is seeing stars. He never thought it could be like this with anyone.  When he’s done this with girls, he always needs them to rough him up a bit to get him anywhere close to this feeling.  Bite him, scratch him, grab him, squeeze him.  Right now he feels like all Freddie would need to do is show him one more ounce of that gentle, tender affection he’s seen glimpses of and he’ll be set right over the edge.

As if he’s read his mind, Freddie’s mouth falls to his jaw, where he leaves the lightest kisses along his jawline in between jagged breaths.  He feels dizzy, like the entire world has turned on its axis and decided to start spinning around him and Freddie instead of the sun.  “Freddie...I-”

“Me too.”  He replies breathlessly as they both thrust unevenly into Freddie’s hand, Cook pulling him as close as he can get.  They kiss one last time, rough and urgent, before Freddie is moaning against his lips, his body practically shaking as his cums across Cook’s stomach.  The sensation is more than enough to send himself right over the edge, gasping and gripping Freddie’s hair.

They crumble into a sticky, sweaty, gasping mess together and Cook hopes he’s actually died and that this is an afterlife where they can stay like this forever.  In his post-orgasm haze, he absentmindedly strokes himself, slowly and gently, the way he likes to when he’s  finished on his own.  Freddie takes over, matching the soft pace he’d set.  The touches are as mild as can be, but his heightened sensitivity has Cook writing in an overwhelming pleasure mixed with the slightest bit of pain. He takes his hand, guiding him slower until pulling him away.  He turns so that their foreheads touch, but when he goes to kiss him Freddie pulls away.

“I don’t think we should...do much of…”  He gestures between the two of them. “You know, this after.”  Cook hardly has a chance for his heart to feel full before it’s broken all over again.  “I just don’t want things to start…”

“Changing?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah...okay.”  Cook swallows hard, he can feel the loss and rejection later.  Freddie hands him a towel from off the floor to clean himself up.  “I’m gonna go grab some water.”  Cook says, retrieving a pair of gray sweatpants off the ground and heading downstairs. 

- 

“So that’s what was wrong this morning…”

He jumps. “Fuckin’ hell Karen I thought you had a dance thing, nobody was supposed to be home.” He pushes passed her, reaching into the cabinet to grab a cup.  “You also don’t know what you’re fuckin’ talking about so mind your own business.” He grabs the pitcher out of the fridge and starts filling it up, pointedly ignoring her raised eyebrow and smug expression.

“We got let out early ‘cos Penny puked all over the dancefloor.  Are you fucking my brother?” Her tone is so nonchalant he hardly realizes what she’s asked at first.

“No, don’t say shit like that.”  He says, as if he didn't look exactly like a guy who just fucked her brother with his swollen lips, sweaty body, and a few reddish purple spots between his neck and shoulder where Freddie left his mark.

“It’s okay if you-”

“Don’t.” He means for it to come out firm and commanding, but it just comes out sounding sad and shaky.

Her smug expression fades.  “Okay.”  She says, taking a sip from her cup of tea.  “I understand.”

“Karen? I thought you had a dance thing?”  Freddie inquires, shoving his hands into the pocket of the hoodie he’s put on. 

“Penny puked all over.”  Cook says, sipping from his cup so he can be just a little less present for this awkward encounter.

“Don’t worry, I was just stopping in to freshen up before I got out.  You boys will still get to enjoy an empty house until dad comes home tomorrow…”  She winks and grabs her car keys, heading out the door before any more conflict arises. 

“Does she know?”  Freddie asks.

“Likely.”

“Let’s just hope she’s better at keeping a secret than JJ is.”

When it comes to Karen, Cook is more concerned with JJ being better at keeping a secret than JJ is.  He can’t lose Freddie to that...he can’t lose Freddie at all.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4

Freddie isn’t worried about Karen telling anyone about the two of them, she’s not cruel, what does worry him is the can of worms he may have just opened up with Cook.  He has this problem of not knowing what he wants until he slaps him in the face and even then it takes him far too long to reach any sort of enlightenment.  He worries he’s leading him on too much, agreeing to the whole ‘friends with benefits’ situation.  He never even considered that he could be attracted to men until last night.  Why would he?  He just hadn’t run into the possibility and, true to his nature, the thought didn’t ever cross his mind.  It hadn’t even occurred to him all those times his best mate kissed him.

It did start to occur to him when Cook told him to close his eyes and pretend he was a girl and he never did, not once.  This is partially because Freddie is very limited in the imagination department, but it’s also because the way Cook was looking at him had been turning him on before he even touched him.  A part of him still brushed this off as him being high off his face on MDMA, even when seeing Cook finish is what led him to cum in his fucking pants like he’s never been touched there before.  Arousal had turned into embarrassment pretty quickly after that. 

After Cook left his room that night, he laid in bed and stared at the ceiling for hours.  Everything that happened before felt like some sort of strange, hormonal teenage fever dream that he watched happen from across the room.  He got up to fetch his ipod and headphones, tripping over Cook’s shoe in the process. “ Fuckin’ hell.” he whispered to himself as he retrieved his other shoe and put them on his dresser.  He put some music on and fell asleep listening to some weird indie shit that matched his mood.  When he woke up, it was nearly noon.  His ipod battery died and he feels like he might’ve as well.  With a pounding headache, he started up the shower and checked his phone.  He was grateful to see JJ had sent him a text that just said ‘ Cook is with me’. He knows how Freddie worries.

He always worried about Cook, even as kids.  As they grew older, he worried less and less about what kind of trouble his antics would get him in with other people, and much, much more about the kind of things he’d do to himself if Freddie didn’t look out for him.  Everyone went through changes around puberty, that’s kind of why there’s a word for it, but Cook seemed to grow darker than anyone else did during that time.  He was still all laughs and dopey smiles, but there were moments where his facade would crack and splinter.

“Hey, Freddie?”  A thirteen year old Cook had asked as he took a swig from the bottle of peach schnapps he’d nicked from his mum.  Freddie tried some, but he hated the way it burned his throat.

“Hmmm?”

“What do ya think happens when we die?”  The question didn’t seem too ominous at the time.  They had been lying in a field looking at the stars, introspection was bound to happen.

“I dunno, there’s too many ideas out there.”  He replied and took the bottle away from his friend.  If he hadn’t, Cook would’ve probably drank the entire thing and woke up in the middle of the woods covered in vomit...and yes, that’s speaking from experience.  “Maybe when you die you get handed a menu and can pick any afterlife you want.”

Cook just laughed, but it faded quickly.  “Do you ever just wanna die, Freds?”

“What? No.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m already dying and my soul’s all shriveled up and rotten just waitin’ for me to finish the job.”  Freddie’s stomach sunk, he was far too familiar with hearing those types of thoughts.

“C’mon now, you’re starting to sound like my mum.”

Cook just reached down to pull some grass out of the ground, the type of thing he always did when he wanted to back down from feeling any sort of real emotion.  Freddie can’t blame him, he once saw his mum slap him right across the face when he cried at his nan’s funeral.  For someone who always spoke of being a sexually liberated feminist, she sure spouted out a lot of ‘boys don’t cry’ and ‘real men’ nonsense.

A few months later, Freddie’s mum killed herself.  After that, he never wanted Cook out of his sight.  And after that, Cook was careful not to express his desire to be dead in front of him.  This only made it harder to tell when he was in a dark place and Freddie wasn’t anywhere near prepared for it when he tried to overdose with pills and booze when they were fourteen.  Cook would always try to reassure him and say it was an accident, that he just took it too far the way he always did, but he knew better than that.  He saw how empty and broken he looked in the hospital bed that day.  He never wanted to see him like that again.

It’s hard to believe the Cook who laid so hollow and numb in that hospital bed two years ago is the same Cook that’s lighting up another joint, raiding his cabinets for snacks and humming an upbeat tune.  When he’s high all the time, it gets too easy to forget just how low he can get.  When he cried in his arms today, Freddie once again became painfully aware of how loose the threads holding his best mate together are and just how fragile he truly is.

“Fuckin’ hell, mate, you lot really ought to go shopping.”  He says, tossing an empty PopTart box out of the cupboard.

“Maybe we’d have a better selection if you didn’t get stoned off your tits everyday and eat everything.”  Cook just laughs and takes another drag from the joint, handing it to Freddie.  “I’ll order pizza.”

It’s getting late now and they’re eating pizza, taking small hits from the shared spliff to keep their high going, and watching a late night comedy show on the couch.  Nothing feels better than when they’re like this, not even when they were slick and naked.  Cook has put on one of his hoodies and Freddie can’t help but notice a new tug in his chest when he sees him in it.  Their bodies fall against each other without a single implication that anything more might happen.  The way they used to be, if only for a short while.

“So your dad’s back tomorrow?”  Cook asks, twirling the joint around in his fingers and fixing his eyes to the tv screen instead of turning to face him.

“Yeah…”  He knows what he really wants to ask.  So I have to go home now? He doesn’t blame him for never wanting to be at his own house, his mum is a nightmare.  Freddie also likes to avoid the woman at all costs after what she did to him the night of Cook’s sixteenth birthday party.  He feels sick when he thinks of it.

“I can move into the school housing next week, I just need to find a place to crash for a few days.”

“You know you can stay here.”

“I better not, I know your dad doesn’t really like me hangin’ ‘round too much.”

“He just thinks you’re a bad influence is all.”

Cook laughs and lights up the spliff with a deep inhale.  “Am I?” He asks as smoke pours out of his mouth.  They both laugh and Freddie retrieves the joint and takes the last hit, putting it out in the ashtray they brought in from the shed. 

“I bet JJ’s mum would let you stay there.”

“Yeah I fuckin’ bet, she’d love a new headcase to psychoanalyze.”  They both laugh again and Cook lays his head on his shoulder.  He wonders if he’s always felt warm and fuzzy in his stomach when they’d get close like this, only to become aware of the feeling when he finally crashed into the prospect of being attracted to other guys.  He wonders if he’s always felt the urge to kiss him and he was just too fucking dense to realize it.  He leans down and kisses him lazily.  Cook pushes his body closer to his and kisses him back, matching the slow and easy tempo he’d set.  He knows this isn’t what friends are supposed to do, but it feels too good and makes his body feel like it’s floating.  When they hear the distinct sound of the front door being unlocked, they’re almost a little too quick to pull apart and put some distance between each other.

“Lads.”  Karen says, stumbling into the sitting room while trying to take off her heels.  She grabs a slice of pizza and pushes the two of them apart to sit in the middle of the loveseat.  “Thank god I’m starving.”  She leans back and practically moans when she tastes her first bite of pizza.  “It’s been all green tea and hard boiled eggs trying to get ready for the competition.”

“What competition?”  Freddie asks.

“To be the next member of the Sexxbombz!”  She exclaims excitedly, shoving another bite of pizza in her mouth.

“Fuckin’ hell, Karen, do you really wanna be part of something like that?”  The idea of his sister being a national sex symbol on display for the entire country to gawk at does not thrill him.

“Of course.  Cook...what do you think about me being a Sexxbomb?  Do you think I’m sexy enough?”  She smirks and bats her gaudy false eyelashes, clearly on a bit of a sassy streak, which tells Freddie she’s been drinking tequila.       

“I think you’ve got pizza sauce all over your fuckin’ face.”  He laughs and throws some napkins at her.  Freddie has always been grateful that Cook and JJ don’t look at Karen the way temporary friends have in the past.  Friendships never last long when one of your mates tries to fuck your big sister.

“Oh fuck off.”  She says, taking another slice of pizza and retreating up to her room.  Cook just laughs, he’s always teased her like she was his own sister.

They clean up their mess in the living room, Freddie insists because his dad will have his ass if he comes home to this.  Unfortunately for him, his dad will have his ass regardless because he’s bound to forget something like he always does.  What can he say? He’s a fuck up.  At least with tonight’s debris cleared, he’ll have a better chance of delaying the inevitable conflict he’ll have with his father.

“I don’t think your dad’s gonna care about your sheets, mate.”  Cook says, holding a pile of clean bedding while Freddie pulls off his sheets, throwing them towards the laundry hamper, which is really just a pile of dirty clothes that resides in a corner of his room at this point.

“I just figure I oughta keep cleaning now that I’ve started, yeah?  If I stop now, I’ll just end up sleeping in sheets soaked in sweat and cum for another six months”  He retrieves the bedding and starts setting everything up.

“Aw, c’mon mate, I thought we kept our mess well contained if you ask me.”  Freddie looks up at him, a little surprised at how casually he’s decided to mention their recent activities.  “Besides, who’s to say we won’t just mess ‘em up again?” Cook gives him a cheeky grin, lying on the fresh sheets in an exaggerated seductive pose.  Freddie just throws one of his pillows at him, which only makes him laugh.

“I think we oughta take it easy on that shit, mate.”  Freddie says, trying to ignore the brief display of emotion that flashes across Cook’s eyes from his rejection.  For just a moment, he sees the thirteen year old boy who asked him if he ever wanted to die.  As quick as it appeared, it’s replaced by that dopey fucking grin as he sits at the edge of the bed in front of Freddie.

“Is that really what you want?”  He says, low and quiet.  He runs his thumbs across the waist of Freddie’s sweatpants, teasing along the bare skin above it.  He leans over and pushes his shirt up to leave soft, breathy kisses along his ribs and fuckinhell the way he looks up at him when he does that is too fucking hot.  There’s no point trying to conceal his arousal in sweatpants, a distinct tent has popped up that gives him away immediately. 

He stands up and turns Freddie around, pushing him to sit on the bed.  He swears his heart skips several beats when he sees Cook get down on his knees, likely because all the blood in his body is going somewhere very much south of his heart.  Christ, it shouldn’t be like this with him, yet he’s lifting his hips up to help him pull down his pants.  As his erection bobs free, Cook grasps it and jesusfuckingchrist his tongue darts out to wet his lips.  There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he trusts his best mate more than anyone to help him face the secret battle he’s been fighting in his head.

“Full disclosure, Freds, I’ve never done this before so make sure you tell me if it’s bad, alright?”  For a moment there he actually seems nervous, but before Freddie can reassure him he’s running his tongue along the length of his shaft and which earns him a surprised moan.  “Keep it down, though…”  He says, his eyes darting in the direction of Karen’s room just outside the closed door.  Freddie nods, chewing his lip to keep himself quiet as Cook repeats the motion one more time before moving onto a much more subtle technique of running his tongue just under the head of his cock.  While the new movement is smaller and slower, it’s overwhelmingly intense.  He pounds his fist on the mattress in lieu of the sound that wants to escape him right now.

“Okay, okay, s-stop, it’s too much…”  He whispers, running his hand through Cook’s hair and gently pulling him back.  “It’s good..just a lot.”  He replaces his tongue with his lips, gently brushing them where his tongue once was, working the rest of him with his hand.  He feels dizzy when he wraps his lips around him, taking him in his mouth.  It feels good at first, until his thoughts betray him and drift to the night of Cook’s sixteenth birthday party.

They had all been so fucking wasted, Cook’s mum had left him two oversized bottles of vodka with a note that said ‘Happy Birthday, Jimmy! Be back tomorrow!’.  He had crumpled the note and tossed it aside.  “Guess we’re getting well fucked tonight then, lads.”  He said, and that they did.  Freddie thought it was going to be just him, Cook, and JJ, but it seemed the prospect of having a massive house to themselves attracted some other acquaintances who didn’t normally enjoy Cook’s company any other day. 

They drank, smoked, and the two of them tried coke for the first time, obviously JJ hadn’t desired to participate, “Think of your hearts!” he pleaded as the two of them snorted up a line of white powder off the coffee table. Cook was barely standing as dawn broke through the windows and they had to drag him up the stairs to his room.  JJ decided it was best he go home because “Quite frankly, the stench that’s accumulated in this house is unbearable.”

Freddie passed out next to Cook briefly, but he awoke with a queasy feeling in his stomach and made his way to the bathroom posthaste, nearly tripping over his own leaden feet multiple times.  After puking up a night's worth of booze, he turned on the tap and scooped some water in his mouth to drink.  It didn’t make the burning sensation in his throat completely disappear, but it felt better.  He jumped when he felt a hand on his back.

“It’s okay, babe, it’s just me.”  Cook’s mum said.  She led him out the door into her own bedroom.  “Lie down…”

“Freddie?”  Cook’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts, he didn’t even realize how deep he’d gone in his own head.  They’re sitting next to each other on his bed now and there’s tears streaming down his face.  “Are you-”  He feels sick.  He pulls up his pants and heads straight to the toilet, but he ends up mostly dry heaving, crying, and feeling like a fucking idiot.  He hates how much that night has affected him.  He’s been led to believe any sixteen year old boy would be over the moon to have a hot, older woman go down on him, but he had begged her to stop.  When she wouldn’t, he had just let silently tears fall until she was done.

There’s a knock at the door.  “Freddie?”  It’s Karen, probably woken up by the horrific noises he’s been making in here.  “You alright?  I’m coming in, okay?”  He doesn’t protest and she opens the door to find him with his back against the tub, knees pulled up to his chest and tears streaming down his face.  “Did Cook do something?”  She asks in a protective tone that’s rare to hear from her, he must really look like shit.

“No...it’s not his fault.”  He wipes away some tears and sniffles.  He feels so pathetic right now, but he can’t get a grip.

“The way he ran out of here, thought you guys had a fight or something.”  She sits next to him but makes no move to touch or hug him, which he’s grateful for.  He thinks if anyone were to make contact with his skin right now he’d crawl right out of it to avoid worsening the heavy feeling in his stomach.

“No, no nothing like that.”  He wipes away another tear because for some reason they’re still fucking falling and he can’t stop them.  “I-I need to find him, he probably thinks it’s his fault and I can’t let him-”

“Don’t, Freddie.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t put this on yourself, he’s not your responsibility, the same way mum wasn’t your responsibility.”  Now it’s her turn to wipe some tears away.  “You can’t destroy yourself to make him happy, Freds.  He’s too broken for you to try to fix, he needs to want to help himself.”

“So what, you’re a fuckin’ expert now?”  He snaps.  “You take one psychology course and suddenly you’re fit to give advice?”

“No.”  She gets to her feet and looks down at him, her arms crossed tight across her chest while her eyes well up with tears. “But I spent my whole fucking life trying to fix mum and she killed herself anyway.  I can’t just sit around feeling guilty for it and you can’t sit around feeling guilty for shit you can’t control either, but fuck me for trying to be a good sister I guess.”  She turns to leave, but faces him one last time.  “You can’t control him, Freddie...I think you know that.”

She shuts the door behind her, leaving him alone on the tile floor to let her words marinade in his thoughts.  If she had told him those things last week, it might’ve helped, but now there are some things contributing to Cook’s current mental state that are very much in his control.  He should’ve told him to fuck off last night when he told him to close his eyes, he shouldn’t have kissed him in the shed this morning, and he shouldn’t have done anything like they did today.  There was just something that felt so right about the way Cook gave into him, like he finally had a way to bring him back down to earth.

It’s disconcerting how quickly Cook’s moods can change, he feels like he’s barely keeping up and when he finally catches him, he’s moved onto a new state of mind.  Just this morning he was talking him down from the ledge, but a few hours ago he was smiling and laughing.  Now he’s gone and Freddie has no idea where he went or what state he’s in, which terrifies him.

He heads to his room and starts digging around to see where he’s left his phone.  When he finds it, he first texts Cook to ask where he is, just in case he manages to both figure out where he’s left it and charge it.  Then he sends out messages to JJ and anyone who Cook might hit up looking for a place to stay, he even hits up his dealer because if there’s anyone who’s going to run into him, it’s that guy.

Freddie: Text me if Cook shows up

JJ: Is he okay?

Freddie: I don’t know

Most other responses are more along the lines of  “who is this” and “fuck off”, but he feels a small weight lift knowing he’s put the word out.  He’ll never forgive himself if he’s pushed Cook over the edge.

-

Cook throws up the hoodie of Freddie’s sweatshirt and shoves his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.  He’s hardly worn his own clothes all week, mainly because he hasn’t been home since he and his mum got into it.  He knows she won’t give a shit if he just comes back, but he doesn’t want to come back.  The only person he wants to see right now is Freddie and he’s gone and fucked that up again.  He thought he wanted it, he definitely seemed like he did.  What did he do wrong?

He finds himself in his uncle’s pub.  He can’t say he remembers the walk here, but he’s happy enough to take the shots Keith starts handing him.  Anything to numb the pain of rejection.

“Oh, right!  Ya mate called ‘ere, the tall ‘n broody one I think, Frankie or summat.”

“Freddie called?”  Cook asks, trying to sound as casual as he can despite his heart threatening to leap right out of his chest.  He takes a long sip of the pint his uncle had shoved at him to chase the mystery shots with.  “What’d he want?”

“He was just lookin’ for ya is all, seemed worried.  What is he, ya boyfriend?”  Keith laughs, a sound that is somehow both too hoarse and too wet.  He pats Cook’s back.  “I’m just fuckin’ with ya, kid, I know you’re not queer like that.”  He leaves to go break up a scuffle and Cook is very grateful for those drunken strangers because he can feel tears stinging his eyes as he downs the rest of his pint.

He slips behind the bar and grabs the phone, dialing Freddie’s number.  He knows it by heart because he’s always losing his fucking phone.

“Hello? Cook?”  He sounds upset, likely because he thinks he’s off’d himself.  What Freddie doesn’t know is that he’s made an oath to not leave him behind without a letter explaining himself.  He remembers how angry and confused Freddie had been when he tried two years ago, he realized he can’t leave him behind without an explanation.  There have been nights where the only thing that’s kept him alive was the fact that he couldn’t find a pen and paper to write Freddie’s letter with.

“Yeah, I-”

“I’m coming over there.”

“Don’t bother, Freds, I’m leaving.  Don’t worry, alright? I’m fine.”

“Don’t you fucking hang up-”  Click.

He knows Freddie worries, but he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve to have someone like him watching his back and pulling him off the ledge when he gets too close.  If anything, he’d like it better if someone would just push him off so Freddie doesn’t have to deal with his stupid fucking bullshit anymore.  He lifts a bottle of vodka off the bottom shelf on his way out, but he’s stopped by his cousin who gives way too many shits about the state of his dad’s pub than he does himself.

“Where you off to with that, then?”  He asks, gripping Cook’s shoulder and making his blood fucking boil.

“C’mon, mate, Keith knows I’m good for it.”  The words suggest he’s trying to diffuse the situation, but his tone is doing nothing but egging him on.

“He might think so, but I know you won’t pay for that and he won’t bat a fuckin’ eye about it.”

“So where’s the problem?”

“The problem is you’re a selfish little prick who takes advantage of the fact that he feels bad ‘cos your dad’s run off and your mum’s a filthy fuckin’ whore who loves every man in this fuckin’ town ‘cept you.”

Cook doesn’t think before he headbutts his cousin right in the nose,  he simply doesn’t have time to consider his options before his words make his blood too hot to handle and the rage takes over.  You should just leave, that was more than enough…   He opens the bottle and takes a hearty swig while the other man tries to catch his bearings.  He replaces the cap and casually sets it back on the bar before slapping him hard, spraying the blood pouring from his nose across the bar. 

“You don’t get to talk about me or my fuckin’ life like that, ya fuckin’ prick.”  He says, but before he can throw a punch, he receives one right to the jaw.  He doesn’t remember much after that, but when he finally feels like he’s in his body again he’s all too aware of not only the pain in his jaw, but in his ribs and right fist as well.  He touches his nose and finds sticky, half dried blood.  His knuckles are scuffed and bruised too, he can feel his right hand swelling up painfully.  In his hand is the bottle of vodka he’d nicked.  He just laughs madly and takes another swig.  He doesn’t know how he made it out of there with the bottle intact, but he’s pleased he managed it.

“Fuckin’ hell, sorry Freds.”  He says to himself as he observes multiple blood stains all over his borrowed sweatshirt.  He gets up off the ground, not bothering to wipe the dirt off himself.  As he pats his pockets looking for a cigarette and a lighter, he becomes painfully aware of his situation.  No phone, no wallet, not even any clothes of his own.  He knows what he needs to do and he’s glad he’s nowhere near sober to do it.  

It’s time to go to his mum’s house and pack.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Cook hates his mum.  He hates her shitty art, her even shittier boyfriends, and the way she flirts with his friends.  He doesn’t give a shit when she screams at him, slaps him, or just pretends he doesn’t exist entirely, everyone does those kind of things to him, but always trying to seduce Freddie is too fucking far.  The way she talks about him sometimes makes him sick to his stomach.  Thankfully there doesn’t appear to be anyone home tonight, at least not for now.  He’s unsure of the time, but it’s not uncommon for his mum to disappear for days at a time. He hopes she at least paid enough mind to get someone to take care of his little brother.

The worst thing is that a part of him still craves her affection and approval, which he hates far more than he could ever hate her.  He can’t stand that he still relishes in those brief moments when she’s drank just the right amount of wine or taken just enough pills to trick her into thinking she loves her son.  It pains him that Paddy is still naive enough to believe she’s changed when she’s like that. Cook once fell for her act too, but not anymore.  Never again.      

Standing in front of his own front door shouldn’t fill him with this much dread.  In a sense, he’s been on the run for over a week.  He’s been crashing on couches and wearing other people’s clothes since his mum accused him of sabotaging her art exhibit and told him she never wanted to see his face in her house again.  He’s tired and broken, he should want nothing more than to head upstairs and crawl into his own bed to sleep off all the stupid shit he’s gotten himself into, but as he retrieves the spare key from under an entirely too conspicuous cat sculpture in the front garden his stomach starts to churn.  He breathes in deep through his nose, exhaling as slow as he can to keep everything down.  He’s quite honestly tired of fucking puking at this point and the throbbing pain in his ribs likely doesn’t want to be antagonized. 

It takes a few tries for his clumsy, alcohol afflicted fingers to work the key into the lock.  It doesn’t help that he has to use his left hand with his right out of commission.  How many times has Freddie rolled his eyes and taken over for him at this point?  How many times has he gotten him home safe despite Cook’s best efforts to sabotage himself?  He thinks it might be more times than he’s had to do this by himself.  He’s quickly feeling that sensation of emptiness spreading through his heart, creeping in his blood and traveling through his veins.  Sometimes when Freddie isn’t with him it’s as if he’s growing cold without his warmth keeping him alive.  A psychologist would probably say this level of attachment is wildly unhealthy...it’s a good thing he doesn’t have one of those.

After a cursory glance around the first floor to confirm the place is empty, he grabs a water bottle from the fridge before making his ascent to his mum’s bedroom to stock up on some essentials before he starts packing.  It’s not what good sons are supposed to do, but he reckons good mothers don’t have a secret stash of pills in a small safe under their bed. The code is her own fucking birthday, of course.  He usually only takes a couple from each bottle so as to not raise suspicion, but since he doesn’t plan on coming back here anytime soon he shoves them all in his hoodie pocket, not even bothering to read the labels. He knows she’ll have oxy and xanax, the rest he can look up later to either sell or swallow, depending on how he feels.  Despite his best efforts to ignore it’s presence, his eyes drift to the pistol she also stores in the safe, but that’s one thing even he can be reasonable about.  He gets into enough trouble with nothing but a few pills and his own two fists, he doesn’t need to bring a gun into the mix. 

Yet, he doesn’t close the safe.  It would be so easy. He shakes his head as if it’ll erase the thoughts intruding into his mind.  It would be over so quickly. He slams the safe shut and shoves it far under the bed so he can’t reach it.  He sits with his back against the bed and pulls his knees up to his chest. He wishes Freddie were here right now to drag him to bed and tell him to just go the fuck to sleep like he always does.  He also wishes he were here to hold him and kiss him and tell him everything is going to be okay.  He’d believe him, too.  With Freddie everything does feel like it’ll be okay, without him he’s so fucking lost and confused.  Without him he wants to die.

He reaches into his pocket and rifles through the bottles until he finds the one with the white bars in it.  He breaks off a quarter and washes it down with some water.  He knows better than to take any more than that when he’s been drinking.  Even liquored up with hazy suicidal thoughts dancing in his head, the memory of getting that fucking tube violently shoved down his nose always brings him back down to earth. He doesn’t remember a single thing leading up to that moment, but his brain wouldn’t let that experience get forgotten. Another much sweeter memory of that day always helps the other one go down smoother.  The one where his eyes were so heavy with fatigue he couldn’t even open them and Freddie was holding his hand.  He told Cook all the reasons he needed him alive mixed in some you stupid fucking bastard ’s.  That was the moment when “Am I in love with Freddie?” became “I am fucking in love with Freddie.” 

With a heavy sigh, he pulls himself up off the floor using the bed as leverage.  Between the alcohol and the pain, it takes him a while to catch his balance, but he’s eventually able to stagger into the bathroom to survey the damage of the fight.  He scrubs the dried blood off his nose, wincing at the tenderness of it.  The warm water reveals a split in the middle of his bottom lip, a pain his body kept a secret until his eyes saw it.  He tries to make a fist with his right hand but it protests with a deep ache beneath it’s swollen tissue.  Lifting his sweatshirt up, he reveals a fresh red and purple bruise on his ribs. He whispers some choice words under his breath.  He doesn’t think he wants to know how his injuries will feel once he sobers up.

Entering his bedroom, he wastes no time stripping down and pulling on some fresh underpants, which he hasn’t had access to all week.  He thinks he may have had a pair at some point, but they got lost somewhere.  Not entirely surprising, if he’s being honest.  He retrieves a duffel from his closet and shoves the pills in one of the pockets. At this point he has every intention to start filling it with as much clothes as he can fit, but his eyes wander to his bed.  His bed.  You know, the one with just the right kind of pillow and the heavy down duvet that he’d stolen from his mum because it was so comfortable to him.  It’s seductive and very convincing.  It’s not long before he’s lying down in it, just for a moment he thinks to himself.  When he lies down, he’s jabbed with a small brick that turns out to be his phone.  

He rubs his eyes, trying desperately to stay awake.  He only has it in him to plug his dead phone into its charger before his own system shuts itself down.  He’s out the second his head touches the pillow, a mix of alcohol, xanax, and pure exhaustion finally forcing him to stop fighting back and just fucking sleep.

-

“I’ve brought you ice cream.”  Freddie smiles sympathetically.  “It’s supposed to be easier for you, with your throat and all…”

“Thanks.”  Cook replies hoarsely.  He still feels nauseated at the very idea of food, but the prospect of something cool to soothe his burning throat appeals to him.

“JJ wants you to know he cares, it’s just that hospitals make him ill.  I told him you’d rather see him after anyway, when you’re feeling better.”

“I am fuckin’ feeling better, they just won’t let me leave.”  He puts a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, relishing in the feeling of it down his throat.  The nausea he experiences when it reaches his stomach is much less desirable.

“They’re just afraid you’ll-”

“What? Off myself? I told you I wasn’t even fuckin’ trying to do that, was I?  Was just an accident…”  He trails off, poking at his ice cream with his spoon.  He knows Freddie doesn’t believe him, which is fair because it’s not true, but he wishes he would.  He’s tired of being one of the reasons his best mate loses sleep at night.

“It’s just that…”  Freddie chews his lip and stares at the floor.  “Even if it was an accident-”

“Which it fuckin’ was!”

“I still keep thinking about how one of these days you’ll get yourself into trouble you can’t get out of and I won’t be there to help.  That you’ll finally take the wrong pill or pick the wrong fight or…”  Freddie’s eyes are shiny with tears and Cook’s heart is heavy with guilt. He sniffles and wipes his eyes with his hoodie sleeve.  “I just wish you’d ease up, is all.”

Cook’s stomach burns as if it’s saying I wish you would, too.  “I’m sorry, Freds...I’ll try to do better, really.”

“You always fuckin’ say that, but you’re gonna be back to this same bullshit next week.”

He’s not wrong.  Cook wishes more than anyone that he could ease up and stop living his life so hard and reckless, but every time he tries he seems to be pulled back in by a siren’s call.  This pill will make you feel better she’ll say, or Fucking that girl will make you forget about what you really want . They’re silent for a while and Cook pointedly eats his ice cream to avoid having to be the one to speak first, but Freddie’s the one who breaks the silence.      

“Just tell me why you did it.”  He pleads with those sad fucking puppy eyes that make Cook’s stomach flip uncomfortably when they connect to his own.

“Did what?” He replies with feigned indifference. 

“Don’t play this fucking game with me, Cook, I know you know better…”  He stands up and paces next to the hospital bed.  “I know you know not to mix those pills with booze.”

“I know…” Cook says, tossing his half eaten bowl on the table hovering over his bed.  “I know, I just...sometimes I don’t know how to make it all stop, you know?  I just took it too far…”

“Make what stop?”

“Fuckin’ everything, Freds, I just want…I dunno, okay? I just want some fuckin’ quiet in my head is all and I just can’t fuckin’ get it-” He chokes up a bit, his throat is still tender and if he bites back tears any harder he’ll chew his entire bottom lip off.  “I didn’t mean to...I swear it.”  It’s not completely false.  He did mean to end it, but he didn’t mean to hurt Freddie the way he did.  It was all so impulsive, he wasn’t even thinking of the people he might hurt.  It won’t be like that next time.  That thought scares him a little...next time.

“Just...don’t fuckin’ do it again, alright?”  

The pause is too long for Freddie’s liking.

“Alright?!”

“Yeah! Alright, alright!”

-

“Cook? COOK!”  He’s shaken awake roughly and when he opens his eyes the world is blurry and spinny and far too bright.  “Fuck’s sake, you were seriously fuckin’ out, what are you even on?”  He sees a hand coming towards him and braces for a slap, but the only contact made is Freddie’s hands cupping his face, his thumbs brushing against his cheekbones.  He feels his fingers reach down to his neck to check his pulse.

“I’m clearly fuckin’ alive, mate.”  Cook slurs, making a feeble attempt to sit up, but his body feels too heavy and he plops back down.  He tries to slap his hand away, but Freddie just catches it and pins it by his head with hardly any force at all, but he doesn’t have the willpower to even attempt to free himself.  He doesn’t think he would even if he could, being overpowered like that has sent some serious shockwaves through him.  If his body didn’t feel like useless jelly right now, he’d probably have a difficult time not getting hard if he’s being honest.   “I’m fine, really.”  He loosens his grip and Cook finds himself oddly disappointed.

It takes him a little bit to recall just what led him to this state in the first place, though he wishes he wouldn’t have.  He would’ve liked to enjoy Freddie like this for just a bit longer before he’s pulled back into the reality where he has to face consequences for his actions. Normally he’d be panicking and trying to distance himself at this point, but the way Freddie has taken his battered hand to gingerly examine his knuckles sends a swarm of butterflies straight to his stomach, though they feel more like fuzzy little moths with the way the alcohol has soured his stomach.

“Who did this?”  He asks, tracing his fingers along the stinging bruise on his ribs.  Cook shivers and pulls the duvet up partly because he doesn’t want Freddie looking at it and partly because he doesn’t think his heart can stand anymore of those touches.  “Are you in trouble?”

“Nah, just my cousin trying to act hard in front of his mates, don’t even remember which cousin it even was honestly…”  He trails off as Freddie kicks his shoes off and lies down next to him so they’re shoulder to shoulder.  Their hands just barely overlap and he wants nothing more than for them to be intertwined so tightly that nothing in this entire fucking world could tear them apart.

“Cook…”  Freddie averts his gaze and chews nervously at the skin on his lips.  “I didn’t...it w-wasn’t…”  His heart thuds wildly in his chest, the uncertainty of all this taunts his already unsettled stomach.  “I’m just weird about...you know, that.  Even with girls, I-I just...it’s good until it’s not, you know?  I always think I won’t freak out and I’ll be able to...but then it ends up feeling like…l-like when…”

“You don’t have to explain it, Freds…”  Their fingers entangle despite the protest from his sore hand.  “I’ll always stop if you don’t like it, alright?”  

“Yeah…”  He replies with a relieved sigh, running his index finger along Cook’s palm.  “I need to tell you something, but I don’t want you to run off again...”

“I won’t.”  He says, though he’s not sure how sincere that promise is because he doesn’t always feel like he’s entirely in control of himself when he bolts.  Sometimes it feels like some outside force comes in and whisks him away from uncomfortable emotional situations so he doesn’t have to confront them the proper way.  It gives him the time he needs to cope with drugs, fucking, and fighting instead.

“I just think I need a little time to work this all out.” It comes out so fast like he had to muster up every ounce of courage he had to say it.  “I just don’t fuckin’ get it right now, do I?  I never fuckin’ get anything.  I just...I just need some time but I can’t figure out what the fuck is happening to me if I’m worrying about you doing something stupid all the time.”

“I won’t-”

“You already fuckin’ have, though!  What’d you even take?”  Much to his disappointment, he takes his hand away to roll over on his side so he’s looking down at him.  “When I found you I thought-” His lips quiver in a way that pains Cook, knowing he’s made one of the only people he cares about--who actually cares about him--feel this way.  “You looked like when I found you that time at that party, when you-”

Cook cuts him off by pulling his head down and kissing him, just once, short and soft.  The sort of kiss that says the thing he can’t verbalize himself.  I’m sorry, I love you.   “I’ll be alright, Freds.”  No he fucking won’t.  All he can think about right now is kissing him again, about kissing him forever and never letting go.  He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to just go back to pretending he’s not so completely fucking insanely in love with his best mate that the very thought of losing him sends him spiraling into the abyss.

“We’ll be alright, Freddie.”

-

It’s been nearly three weeks since Freddie told Cook he needed time to figure things out and he’s totally, completely, UTTERLY fucking okay with this.  It doesn’t hurt at all when Freddie opts to sit next to JJ to avoid being too close to him.  It doesn’t hurt one fucking bit when their legs touch and he pulls his away like he just received an electric shock.  It registers as a zero on the pain scale when he constantly finds excuses not to be alone in the same room as him.  He’s fine, Freddie’s fine, JJ hardly remembers that there was a moment where things might not have been fine.  Everything is completely fucking fine so long as he continues starting his day with a spliff, half a pill, or both depending on how he feels.

He’s honestly impressed at just how well he’s been keeping it all together.  He’s been able to keep his emotions at bay for weeks, he’s only cried once, well, maybe two or three times.  He’s been lonely, but when things feel too cold and dark for him to carry on, he just heads to the club and finds a girl to spend the night with.  She’ll be rough with him because that’s the only way he can get off with her, those gentle touches don’t get him anywhere when it’s not him. He’ll finish and it won’t even feel half as satisfying as it did with Freddie, even when he closes his eyes to replay the nights they shared in his head.  He’ll convince her he’s too drunk to make it home and she’ll let him sleep next to her, sometimes he’ll even get away with holding her close so he can feel warm and wanted.  He’s doing just fine. 

In fact, everything is fucking fine until she sees him and he sees her.  He thinks Freddie is just watching the man throw a fit over wrecking his car, but he follows his gaze to the girl in the passenger’s seat smoking a cigarette.  She’s the kind of beautiful and mysterious one would expect to see on television, not in flesh and blood, and the way Freddie is looking at her makes it feel like someone’s set his heart on fire then violently stomped it out.  If he hadn’t already medicated himself with a healthy dose of weed and booze this morning, he probably wouldn’t have come to the very rational solution of If I fuck her first, Freddie won’t want her anymore.

He really thought he’d be able to be civil about all this, but the way Freddie looked at her provoked something ugly and angry.  As he’s wiping ketchup off his head after his dumb little performance, they exchange a look that says something along the lines of So this is how it’s going to be? 

Yeah, this is how it’s gonna fuckin’ be, Freddie .

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

Cook has to admit that even he is somewhat enchanted by Effy Stonem.  There’s a darkness he sees when he looks into her eyes that feels all too familiar, for some twisted fucking reason this makes him feel safe with her.  When they fuck she seems about as disinterested in his body as he is hers, like the only reason she’s even there with him is because she got bored and wanted something to keep her occupied.  They do what they have to do to get each other off (at least he thinks he might’ve gotten her off) and separate the moment they’re finished, likely leaving neither of them truly satisfied in the end, but feeling just a little bit less empty than when they started.  At least that’s how he feels, it’s kind of hard yet for him to tell what’s going on in the mind of Effy.  He wonders if there’s anyone out there who could really know a girl like this.

He knows Freddie would like to try.  He’s seen the way he looks around in the crowded hallways just so he might catch a glimpse of her walking by.  He’s only been infatuated with her for a day and Cook’s already terrified that he’s lost him to her.  He doesn’t want her to have him, so he has to make sure he doesn’t want her anymore.  It’s not the first time he’s done this.  He knows this makes him absolutely fucked in the head, but he just can’t seem to stop himself from doing dumb shit when he starts feeling Freddie slip away.    

“So we gonna do this again or what?”  He asks, lighting up the half smoked spliff they discarded earlier. 

“Why would we?”  She asks with cool indifference.  He figures her attitude is all part of the challenge, she seems to like playing games.  That’s okay, so does he.  After all, he’s the one who worked his way through a list of tasks just to be in this room with her, which he only wanted to do so Freddie would stop fucking ignoring him.

“Why wouldn’t we?”  He quips back with a goofy smile that he knows girls can’t help but find endearing.  She just takes her spliff back and takes a long, apathetic drag.  “You ever get tired of pretending to be all cool and mysterious?”

“No.” she says, flicking the joint away.  “Do you ever get tired of pretending to enjoy fucking women?”  Her lips curl up into an almost sinister grin as his smile quickly fades.  It’s gone only for a moment before he forces himself into his first line of defense when anything gets serious, laughing like everything in life is a fucking joke.

“I think I enjoyed it just fine…”  The way she rolls her eyes at that is fucking infuriating, but he has to play nice until he knows he’s gotten her away from Freddie.  “You looking to get fucked up this weekend?”  He asks, hurrying to change the subject to something that will entice her into a conversation that doesn’t involve his questionable sexuality.

“Always.”  He digs into his pocket and hands her a crumpled up invitation and she lets out a disappointed sigh.  “Nobody shows up at this guy’s parties, let alone get ‘fucked up’”

“Have some faith, babe.  You bring some friends, I’ll bring the drugs, we’ll all get well fucked and have a proper good time, yeah?”  Getting her to roll her eyes again only widens his smile.

“Fine, but don’t call me babe ever again.”  

- 

They get through the first week of school relatively incident-free aside from their first day on Monday.  He considers telling Freddie about his escapades with Effy in the nurse’s office, but on Tuesday their legs touch and he doesn’t pull away immediately.  On Wednesday Cook makes a joke and he actually laughs, which makes his stomach flutter sickeningly.  On Thursday they get stoned and Freddie shows him and JJ a new album he discovered.  By Friday he’s starting to think things may start to be settling back down, it seems like the chill-happy-stoner Freddie to moody Freddie ratio has balanced out again and he doesn’t want to risk ruining that. Unfortunately, the forecast this evening is pretty fucking moody.

“There is a way we can do both, Cook!”  JJ exclaims a little too loud for the small shed they’re in, but he has no concept of volume when he’s excited.

“There is no fuckin’ way we can do both, mate, it’s not happening.  Also, I don’t want to.”  He replies, struggling to spark up the flame on his lighter.  He can’t help but notice Freddie has been awfully quiet today.  Cook has been steadily reassembling his defenses after their  this summer, but their relationship has gotten even more strained since he started pursuing Effy and it’s beginning to chip away at the shoddy wall he’s built.  He misses his best mate and he hates the days where he won’t even look at him.

“If you don’t count the credits, the run time of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is a mere eleven hours and fourteen minutes, if you both could just wake up early enough we co-”

“I don’t think so, J.”  Freddie replies rather tersely, continuing his work rolling joints for the party tomorrow night.  Watching him run his tongue along the paper gets his mind drifting to the dangerous place he’s been avoiding for weeks, the place where he knows exactly what that tongue feels like sliding across his bottom lip.

“You guys never wanna do anything I wanna do anymore, it’s always parties and drugs and girls.  Why can’t it be a movie marathon first THEN you guys can go off and do whatever deviant things you guys get up to when I’m not around?” Cook and Freddie share an awkward glance, JJ crosses his arms.  This is usually when Freddie steps in to diffuse the situation, but he just goes back to silently filling and rolling.

“You just gotta start liking more interesting things, mate.”  Cook says, finally getting the lighter lit and taking a lengthy drag of his cigarette. 

“You used to like it too!”

“Yeah ‘cos Arwen’s a fuckin’ babe.”  Nobody needs to know she wasn’t really the elf that had a young Cook’s heart...or that he ever had a thing for any elves at all for that matter.  Because that's fucking embarassing.

“Arwen is barely featured in the films, just admit you liked them.” Cook just shrugs and JJ rolls his eyes.  “Well...fine, then. I better get going, the model shop closes soon and I have an order to pick up, so…”

“Just let me finish this and we’ll hang out, alright?”  Freddie says, never looking up from his work.

“As much as I’d love to sit around and watch you be mad at Cook for sleeping with Effy, I do think I’d have a better time elsewhere.”  He says, collecting his things and leaving the two of them alone in the shed.

“Listen, mate-”

“You fucked her?”  He still hasn’t looked up, but his fingers have stopped working.

“Well, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and t-”

“You knew I liked her.”  He slams his hand on the coffee table and looks up with a fire in his eyes.  “Why do you always have to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Fuck the girls I like.” 

Cook just laughs and flicks the ashes of his cigarette away, which clearly pisses Freddie off because he’s standing up now.  “C’mon. I don’t fuckin’ do it on purpose, mate, I just fuck who I feel like fucking.”  He sees Freddie’s hands ball up into fists and he laughs again.  “What?  You gonna fight me about it?”  He’s standing now too with just an arms length of heavy tension between the two of them.

“I’m not gonna fuckin’ fight you.” He says, but the intensity in his eyes tells a different story.  He can’t help the urge to egg him on.  He knows he shouldn’t with how fragile their relationship has been lately, but he just can’t fucking hold it in.  Something about pissing him off is just so enticing right now.

“Why not?”  Cook lightly pushes his chest and gets his hand promptly slapped away, but this mostly just encourages him to do it again. To his surprise, Freddie grabs his shirt and pushes him against the wall.  He’s raised his fist, but Cook doesn’t even flinch.  He knows he’d have to do something a lot more fucked up than this for his best mate to ever lay a hand on him.  Plus, he’s putting a lot of effort into steadying his breath so he doesn’t give away just how turned on this outburst made him.  He’s become so desperate for Freddie to touch him that he could probably knock him out cold and it would get him hard.  His efforts to hide his arousal are worthless, though, because the involuntary glance at Freddie's mouth and unconsciously licking his lips is very telling.

Freddie lowers his fist and leans in, his cheek brushes against Cook’s as he speaks in a tone that’s softer but just as angry into his ear.  “Is this what you want?”  He asks, still gripping his shirt and keeping him pinned to the wall.  Cook’s hips involuntarily inch forward a bit, his body’s way of begging for contact.  He wishes he didn’t want this so fucking bad, it’s embarrassing how desperate he feels and how little control he has over the way his body is reacting.  When Freddie spreads his legs apart with his knee, his thigh creates some glorious fucking friction that make his head fall back.  Their lips are almost touching and for a moment he thinks he may finally get to be put out of the misery he’s been in for weeks. 

“I just want you , Freddie.” The second he says it, he wishes he could suck the words back up so they never make it to Freddie’s ears.  He sounds so fucking pathetic and whiney he just wants to curl up and die, but it doesn’t end there. “I want you with me ...”  He presses their foreheads together, desperately wishing for the gap between their lips to close, but it never does.  Instead he loosens his grip on his shirt and pushes away, the physical distance between them a painful reminder of how far away Freddie feels right now.  Cook chews his bottom lip so hard he tastes the sharp metallic tinge of blood, but it’s better than losing his shit and crying in front of him again.  

“You can’t fuckin’ say shit like that to me right now.”  He says, running his fingers through his hair.

“Then when the fuck can I say it.”  His voice comes out strained and small.  He’s avoided these feelings for far too long and now he feels like he just might break if he keeps going.

“I dunno...I just-”  The shed door creaks open, interrupting Freddie before he can continue.

“It appears as if I’ve left my headphones behind and I...have you two been fighting again?”  JJ asks, not daring to walk through the wall of monumental tension that’s just been built between them.  “Please, she doesn’t even seem worth losing each other over!”

“Don’t worry about it, JJ.”  Freddie snaps, which causes their friend to wince.  “I’m sorry, I just…”  He glances back towards Cook.  “I’ve got some shit going on, I just wanna be alone right now, okay?”  He leaves, slamming the door behind him which causes JJ to flinch.

“What does he mean he has shit going on?”

“Fuck if I know, mate.  You know how he gets sometimes.  He gets pissed and he’s gotta brood ‘n that.”  Cook says, searching the ground for the cigarette he dropped to distract himself because if he doesn’t, the flood gates just might open and he’ll start crying like a fucking baby in front of his friend. He’s already sniffling and wiping away potential tears before they fall, but JJ knows better than to mention it.  

“He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping well either, it’s making him real crabby if you ask me.”  He awkwardly collects his headphones and starts twirling the cord around his fingers to avoid looking directly at him. “You really ought to stop having sex with the girls he likes.”

“Well you really oughta stop telling him about it and he wouldn’t get so mad.”

“Then why do you tell me?”  Cook pauses and eyes up the fallen cigarette.  He tries to light it back up, but his junky fucking lighter isn’t working.  “I think you tell me because you want him to know.  But why?”

“That’s fuckin’ ridiculous, mate.” Flickflick. “Fuckin’...have you got a light or somethin’?”  With a sleight of hand trick, JJ produces a lighter.  “Alright now you’re just showing off.”  

“So do you?”  He asks, holding the lighter for Cook.

“Do I what?” Cook asks, inhaling quickly to settle his nerves.  He’s suddenly feeling very trapped in this conversation.

“Want him to know?”

“Fuck off.”

“No, really.  You know I can’t keep a secret, you always come and tell me everything and I always end up spilling and I-”

“I don’t tell you everything.”  That was the wrong thing to say if he wanted to get himself out of this.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I guess...maybe you’re right, I dunno.”  He shrugs and retrieves his jacket from the couch.  He shoves JJ’s lighter in his pocket and pulls his phone out to check the time.  He’s going to need to find a way to occupy himself tonight so his thoughts can’t linger on what just happened with Freddie for too long.  “Ya know, I think it’s still a reasonable hour for Fellowship of the Ring…”  JJ lights up but is quick to try to compose himself.

“You know, you can’t always avoid serious conversations with bribery.”

“Sure I can, ‘cos we both hate serious conversations and like Lord of the Rings.”  Cook grins and takes one last drag of his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray.

“I knew you liked it.”

“Fuck off.”

He likes what he and JJ have, it’s uncomplicated and unwavering.  As kids they were always playing make-believe together when Freddie wasn’t around, JJ would always say it’s no fun with him because he lacks imagination.  Cook would be King Arthur and JJ would be Merlin, he’d absolutely insist on being fucking Merlin.  They’d play for hours and hours in their own little fantasy world. These days Cook pretends nothing is going on with him and Freddie and JJ pretends to believe him because it’s just easier that way.  Ignoring their problems is what they do best together. 

That’s why he’s sat here on JJ’s couch an hour and a half into a three hour long movie eating popcorn and candy like they’re at a proper theater.  Being with him is like being a kid again, like it was before he was nervous to shower after P.E., before he was terrified he’d get beat up if he kissed a boy he fancied, and before he couldn’t be left alone with his best mate without wanting to fuck him or fight him.  It makes things feel like a time before he couldn’t make it through the day without wanting to kill himself unless he has some sort of drug in his system. 

When the movie ends, he parts ways with JJ (despite protests that the night is still young enough for The Two Towers) and starts walking back to his dorm, taking a route that adds more time to his journey just so he can stop across the street from the pub with the rainbow flag in it’s window.  He never goes inside, he just likes seeing he’s not the only one.  He knows there must be at least one or two people in there who were once closeted teens in love with their best mates, too.  He always thinks someone in there may have the words he needs to hear, but he’s never had the courage to walk in.

“You gonna go in there?”  A woman’s voice comes from a bench behind him, startling so much he jumps.

“Jesus fuckin’ christ...wait, I know you…”  She rolls her eyes.  “Yes.  Naomi fuckin’ Campbell, innit?  Yeah, I wouldn’t forget you.”  He laughs while she just remains unamused with her arms crossed, holding a half drank bottle of wine.  “The fuck are you doing out here?”

“Same as you.”  She replies, taking a swig from her bottle.

“And what am I doing out here?”  He asks, his smile fading as he’s suddenly feeling very exposed.  He shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and toys nervously with the lighter in there.

“Same as me, I’d guess.”  He scoffs but sits himself down on the bench next to her.  She hands him the bottle and he takes a grateful swig. “Please don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“So long as you don’t, not that there’s anything to tell...” They sit in an awkward yet understanding silence for a while before Cook can’t stand it anymore.  “You going to that party tomorrow?”

“Pft, at Ryan’s?  Nobody ever goes to those.”  She snatches her bottle back and takes a sip.  “His house smells like a hamster cage and he always wants people to come watch his snake eat a live rat.”  He laughs, probably a little too loud than the situation called for.

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna make it a proper good time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you oughta come ‘round.”

“Alright.”

“Well, that was easier than I thought.”

She shrugs.  “I haven’t got any friends left, figure I can’t be too picky about who I hang out with anymore.”

He just throws his head back and laughs.  “I promise I’m good company.  Most days, at least.  Well, no promises on that actually, I can be a right cunt.”

“You know, I think you might not be as bad as you seem.”  She turns and smiles at him.  “Or you might be exactly as bad as you seem and I’m being a fucking idiot thinking you’re not.”

“Guess you’ll just have to find out.”  He grins and nudges her shoulder.

They exchange numbers and go their separate ways, neither brave enough to step inside the pub tonight.  His heart feels warm not because he’s into Naomi, but because for just a moment talking to her made him forget about how it felt to be blown off by Freddie today.  It gives him this morsel of hope that maybe he’ll be okay if he doesn’t love him back. He may need to take an ambien to get through the rest of the night, but he’s glad to have had a few good moments today.  He tries to hang onto those so the bad moments don’t drag him down into darkness, but it’s not always easy.  

The second he’s in his room he wastes no time undressing and swallows a sleeping pill before plopping down on his perpetually unmade bed.  He just wants this day to be over so he can wake up tomorrow, get as high as possible, and ride it out all day and night until he’s able to push down the way he feels again.  

As he closes his eyes to try to fall asleep, instead of fixating on the words he said like he thought he would, Cook’s mind instead decides to drift to the physical aspects of Freddie’s confrontation today, which is considerably more welcome than the alternative.  He dances his fingers along his chest, running them up and down his abdomen, always stopping just shy of the part of him demanding their attention.  He doesn’t really have much time to contemplate the act before the pill kicks in, but he’s always hesitant to start when Freddie’s on his mind.  It’s not the first or probably even hundredth time he’s thought of him like this, but he feels a little guilty when he does.  It just feels a special kind of wrong to get off thinking about your best mate.

Still, his thoughts wander as his hand travels downwards to the way Freddie’s body felt pressed against his, the way his skin felt against his lips, the way he smelled, and especially to the small sounds he’d make when he was touching him.  He thinks how today could’ve gone if it went just a little different.  If Cook would’ve kissed him, if Freddie would’ve kissed him back. If he would’ve said ‘I want you, too’ instead of blowing him off.  He keeps thinking about him throwing him down and pinning his arms above his head contrasting with those gentle, barely there touches that he didn’t know he wanted until he showed him.

When he’s finished, he softens his strokes but doesn’t stop quite yet.  He relishes in the overstimulation that becomes almost blinding when he thinks about how much better it felt when Freddie had taken over for him.  As his hand slows his mind goes to the place that fills him with more shame than anything else, the thing he wants even more than any of the other shit.  All he wants is for Freddie to hold him close, to kiss him, to tell him he loves him.  He’d even settle for Freddie not looking like he wants to run and hide when they’re finished.

He cleans himself off and suddenly he’s feeling especially low, like all of his guilt, fear, and sadness that was restrained in his mind escaped with the release his body was able to get.  It’s hard to keep it all in check now that his thoughts aren’t clouded by his hormones.  He lies back and closes his eyes, hoping and praying the ambien kicks in before he can feel much worse about himself.

Thankfully, it does.