Chapter Text
“Goddamnit Billy!” Teddy’s fist goes through the wall. “It’s fucking simple! If you want to be with someone, you fucking act like it!”
“What is wrong with you?” Billy yells back. “I didn’t even do anything!”
“Yeah, that’s just it, you don’t do anything. You don’t call me, you don’t text me, you just do whatever the fuck you want and you don’t even consider – ”
“Maybe because every time I fucking try, you blow up at me!”
Teddy hits himself in the leg to avoid putting more holes in the wall. They’ve been fighting like this for weeks, it seems like. He doesn’t even know how it started. Maybe Billy said something, or maybe he said something, and then Billy started avoiding him, and he’s been trying, okay, trying really fucking hard, but it’s just. Not. Working.
“Maybe…” he sits on the edge of Billy’s bed. He tries to keep his voice down. “Maybe we should take a break.”
Billy crosses his arms. “You want to break up?”
“Right now, kind of.” He rubs his eyes. “You don’t treat me like a boyfriend, Bill. I’m fucking sick of it.”
“Fine.”
He looks up. “Fine? That’s all you’re gonna say?”
“What do you want me to say, Ted? You want to break up, fine. Let’s break up.”
And that’s it.
Teddy’s still in shock when he gets home. He’d never intended on ending things with Billy. Sure, they were going through a rough patch…in fact, Billy’s been fucking insufferable, but Teddy never thought he’d just give up like that. Just let him go without a fight. Shit, he’d have fought for Billy, if the tables were turned. He’s sure of it. But Billy just gave in, like it didn’t even mean anything.
Maybe this is what Billy wanted all along.
He starts to cry, and he’s only a little ashamed. He never let himself cry before Billy. No, before Billy it was all noise and bullshit and people, people that Teddy wasn’t, people that everyone else wanted him to be. “Identity” for Teddy used to be like a series of t-shirts that he’d bust out for different occasions; always fluid, never steady. Some were familiar, comfier, but at the end of the day, he’d shed them and find a new one. It’s an exhausting way to live.
But then there was Billy, and Billy had so much more reason to hide than Teddy, but he didn’t. Billy, with his slight frame and long eyelashes and shy smile; that smile that turned Teddy’s stomach into a knot the first time he saw him. It’s a smile with a question mark at the end, because more then half the time it ends with Billy getting his ass kicked, but it’s stayed the same all these years, after everything Billy’s been through. He never lost it.
But Teddy’s lost it.
He’s lost Billy.
--
Billy once saw a poster in a record store that said “People Always Leave”, and those three words have haunted him since. He’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it’s not like he doesn’t have good reason, after all, Billy’s no stranger to disappointment. He keeps his expectations of people comically low, and they still always find a way to let him down. And it never fails; every single time he starts to really count on someone, they leave him. For god’s sake, even his own mother didn’t want him. And if the one person who’s supposed to love you unconditionally doesn’t even want you, what does that say about the rest of your life? His therapist likes to remind him that he has two loving parents who wanted him desperately, and he knows that, and of course he loves them back, but it doesn’t change the facts.
So it’s really not surprising when Teddy says he wants to break up. Disappointing, sure. Billy had been counting on Teddy, because Billy’s a fucking idiot and he forgot that People Always Leave. That’s the rule, isn’t it? There’s always a better friend, a better adventure, a better son. Billy knows this. He knew from the beginning he could never keep Teddy. Teddy is warm, and steady, and loyal, and good, and Billy’s pretty sure his own parents even like Teddy better than him. Teddy sees people; he sees what they need and he gives it to them. Billy’s never known anyone like him.
The break-up – well, it was probably mostly Billy’s fault. He’s been shutting Teddy out. Teddy’s been talking about colleges, and life after high school, and it was sort of a wake-up-call to Billy that they’ll be leaving soon. Leaving the city and going off to god knows where, and Teddy will meet other people, and other guys, and he’ll find someone better, and that’s just the harsh truth. Billy’s been telling himself this, over and over, but he can’t seem to quash that infuriating voice that until a few hours ago said Teddy won’t leave you.
Now, of course, that horrible, maddening voice is saying, Teddy will come back.
But he won’t come back. People don’t, once they leave. With so many better things than Billy out there in the future, who would ever want to go back?
--
Teddy wants to go back.
He’s been running over and over in his mind, trying to figure out how they got to this place. How he got so frustrated to the point that he punched a hole in Billy’s bedroom wall. There’s got to be a reason that this was his fault, right? It stands to reason that if he broke it, he can fix it.
But it doesn’t know what’s broken. Just that it is.
It wasn’t always like this, though. Teddy can’t help smiling to himself when he thinks about it. The first time he saw Billy. The first time they talked, the first time their fingers brushed together accidentally on purpose; their first kiss, their first sleepover. Coming out to Billy’s parents together. The first time Billy blurted out, “I love you,” and Teddy could’ve cried he was so happy. Everything was just easy back then. It was always easy with Billy, as natural as breathing. Teddy hadn’t really known what it was until Billy’d said, “I like that I can be myself around you, Ted,” and it hadn’t really hit Teddy until later that night, because Billy was always himself, that’s why Teddy loved him. And Teddy’d put on all the masks, he’d done everything he could think of to get Billy to fall for him. God, what were they doing – watching some stupid movie on the SciFi channel, Sharktopus or something – and he’d passed Billy a slice of pizza, and just the way Billy looked at him, that look that Teddy’d been trying to get for weeks and then, when he wasn’t even doing anything, finally got it.
He remembers how, when they started dating, Billy’d just randomly look over and say, “Thanks, Teddy”
And Teddy’d say, “For what?”
And Billy’d say, “For being you.”
And this happened too many times for Teddy to count, but he still never expected to hear it when he did.
It’s these kinds of things that Teddy finds himself thinking about now. Funny how at the end of things, you always find yourself reliving the beginning.
--
“Oh shit, you got Huntzberger?” Greg was looking over his shoulder, reading his schedule. “Fucking sucks, bro.” He patted Teddy sympathetically on the shoulder.
“Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“Dude’s a fucking lunatic. Got like, half his ass shot off in ‘Nam or something. He’s got a metal fucking ass cheek.”
“You can hear it clang when he sits down,” Tim added, his mouth full of breakfast burrito.
Teddy laughed and stuffed his binder in his backpack. “Sounds kinda badass.”
Greg threw a tater tot at him. “I can’t believe you just said a metal ass cheek sounds ‘kinda badass’.”
“Hey, if it’s good enough for the Terminator,” Teddy pointed out.
Greg considered. “Touché. Alright, metal ass cheeks get a pass. Huntzberger does not.”
“Whatever, man.” Teddy grabbed his Gatorade and mimed splashing it on Greg, who flinched even though he knew the cap was on. Greg always flinched. “I’ll see you a-holes later.”
He heard Tim yell something like, “Altman wants that Huntzberger metal dick!” and gave them all the finger over his shoulder. It was just a joke, of course. His friends didn’t know he was gay. Or maybe they suspected, because he’d never expressed a huge interest in girls, but they were content with just keeping it out of their minds.
And as it turned out, they were right. Not about the metal ass cheek, but about Huntzberger being a fucking nutcase. Their reading list for his English class was massive, full of books Teddy’d never heard of and books he didn’t think they were really meant to read until senior year. Teddy actually loves reading; he’s always loved to read, but didn’t really broadcast that at the time. God, he’d been so fucking miserable back then, when he thinks about it now. At this point in the memory, he’s excited, because he knows what’s coming next. Huntzberger announced that the class had a “heavy” (and that was frankly an understatement) focus on reading responses, and that they’d come to class every day with a one page reading response, and discuss them with their partners.
Yes, partners. They got a reading response partner, just one, for the whole semester. Huntzberger’s not a complete sadist; he let them pick their own partners. Teddy had a handful of friends in the class, he thinks, it’s hard to be sure now because all he thinks of when he thinks of junior year English is Billy, but there were a few people he could’ve partnered with. He hadn’t been without options. But there was a boy sitting in a front corner desk, a boy with untidy dark hair and narrow shoulders, and all it took was two big brown eyes and a tremble of a smile for Teddy to forget about everything else in the world.
Teddy remembers every single nanosecond of the moment he first saw Billy. He remembers Billy’s dark, fitted jeans, scuffed around the knees from getting shoved into the lockers between classes. He remembers seeing Billy’s collarbones peeking out from behind his maroon v-neck; he thinks of how only weeks from then he was pressing his lips against those collarbones and whispering a hundred promises into them. He remembers the veins on Billy’s forearms and the delicate tendons in Billy’s hands and the sharp Adam’s apple in his throat and the way his ears went a little pink when Teddy approached him. He remembers how Billy turned and looked over his shoulder, as though expecting to see someone that Teddy could’ve conceivably been headed towards; how his eyes widened when he realized Teddy was coming to see him. He remembers thinking that Billy was the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.
Teddy isn’t a particularly insecure person. He’d never had problems being accepted at that point; mostly because of his innate ability to show people what they wanted to see. But he was nervous about approaching Billy. It seemed to take a very long time, that walk to the front of the room, and if Teddy closes his eyes now, he can picture the dozen different ways that Billy’s lips parted as he got closer, and he can smell Billy, that pine needles and cinnamon scent that came off Billy’s skin and reminded him of Christmas. He let himself fall into the seat opposite Billy with a thud and grinned at him sheepishly. “Teddy Altman,” he said, extending a hand. “Need a partner?”
--
Billy legitimately thought he was being punk’d. Two minutes earlier he’d been internally groaning because fucking Huntzberger, in a fit of collaborative teaching, had given them the task of finding reading partners for the entire semester. Why he couldn’t just lecture and call on unsuspecting students to answer questions, Billy didn’t understand. He saw everyone around him excitedly pairing off with their friends, and he waited for the inevitable other outcast to come to the front of the room and slouch next to him. And then – Teddy, but he didn’t know it at the time of course, didn’t know that he was about to fall head over heels in love with the blue-eyed boy that came to sit across from him, jock-thick with blonde bed-head, loaded ears, and dimples like a fucking movie star.
“Teddy Altman,” he said. “Need a partner?”
Billy shook his hand and tried not to look shocked. He stammered, “Uh – yeah, sure. I’m – I’m Billy. Kaplan. Like the test prep.”
“Righteous,” Teddy grinned. “I’ve got some Princeton Review prep books at home; hopefully that won’t be an issue.”
“We should be able to overcome it, I think.” He couldn’t help grinning back. The day had started out predictably: getting knocked into some lockers, cut in the coffee line seven or eight times, the usual taunts of “fag” and “cocksucker” in the locker room. He was used to that stuff. What he wasn’t used to was gorgeous popular guys coming and offering to be his class partner without so much as a “no homo”.
“So, you believe what they say about Huntzberger?” Teddy asked. He sounded like he was teasing, but not in a cruel way. It was an affectionate sort of tone, and Billy wanted to hear it again as soon as possible.
“What do they say?”
“My buddy Greg said he caught a shell in the ass in ‘Nam and lost a cheek,” he said under his breath, raising his eyebrows at Billy meaningfully, “But that he’s got a replacement one made of metal.”
Billy snorted. “Sounds like the setup for a bad ‘Buns of Steel’ joke.”
“Right?”
It was so easy to talk to him, Billy remembers. He just knew how to make you comfortable. Within minutes they were deciding which side of Huntzberger’s ass was the metal side, laughing and joking in a way that made Billy feel warm all over. Teddy stretched back at one point with his arms over his head and Billy had a hard time not staring. It’s weird for Billy to think about now, now that he has Teddy’s body memorized in every way. It’s strange that there was a time when he didn’t know about the birthmark on Teddy’s side, or the freckles on his back, or the tattoo of his father’s initials on his chest. That there was a time when he didn’t know the feeling of falling asleep against Teddy’s chest, or the sensation of Teddy’s weight settling over him when they were in bed together, or the sweet smell of warm metal from Teddy’s ears when they lay out face to face in the sun. And he’d surely thought about all those things during that first class period, although he never expected to experience them, and he never expected it to be better than anything he could’ve imagined. But that was Teddy. Great in theory, even better in person. He didn’t – he doesn’t know why Teddy ever talked to him in the first place.
That stupid little voice in the back of his mind says Teddy loved you then, and Teddy loves you now. But Billy’s not sure of anything anymore. Teddy left. And Billy’s got his memories, but outside of them, he’s lost.