Broken String

XCI

"It's because Brett left?"
John's voice is soft, deceptively small, but his eyes are keen, something dawning in them that takes Eddy aback. Oh, no. Has he given too much away? Then John's eyebrows raise and he smiles incredulously. He gets up with a shock, walks to the kitchen, pours a glass of water and hands it to him.
"Um. Last time I saw you you and Brett were best friends and you had a girlfriend. Has... has that changed?"
He's doing it. Oh, no, he's actually doing it, he's dragging everything he's managed not to think about out and he's taking it out for a spin. No, no, John, don't do this, not now, he has enough things to worry about.
"Um. Maybe." he admits.
John blinks his surprise away.
"Well. I never. I mean... maybe..."
"Maybe what?"
John's kind smile is everything. It's clear acceptance, no matter what he says. Eddy knows where he's come from, because he told him years before at a barbecue. A gay boy from a strict, old-fashioned home. He knows John had to leave and move across the country so he could be himself, so he could build a life with Mark, his partner.
"Maybe what?" he repeats.
"Nothing. Eddy. You have feelings for him?"
Eddy freezes on the couch. No, no. No, not this. He needs to not think about this, he needs to... he has too much to think about. Too much, it's all too much. Why is his breath so treacherous? Calming down, speeding up again the next minute? But John's eyes are open, and inviting, and kind. There's no judgement there.
A gasp, a sob and Eddy is nodding, his head bobbing up and down of its own accord once, twice, three times with the weight of the universe behind it. Their universe, maybe, the new one they created together, this morning in the shower.
"Wow." John breathes next to him. "Does he know?"
Eddy shrugs harshly. This is something else he doesn't want to think about, you see?
"I don't know." he whispers. "We've been... I mean... I can't really tell you."
Now John's eyebrows really do fly up.
"Kissing?"
Eddy shakes his head, a nervous giggle just about staying down in his throat. No, no kissing. Although... Brett's lips quickly fly into his mind's eye. Pink, plump with his excitement.
Oh God, no. 
"Fuck." he whispers. "I'm in so much trouble. No, not that. It... just... he's just... helping out. Because at the moment I can't. Um. You know." he raises his useless right hand helplessly. 

John's grin is so soft and kind that it somehow clears the whole room and shoots the fist out of Brisbane, into orbit.
"Right. He's just helping out, hey?"
Eddy nods shyly. I mean, he is, right? At least... that's how it began?
"That's how it started." he admits timidly.
They are quiet for a long, long moment then. The sunlight slides over the floor ever so slowly, like it does every day, the shadow of the window pane moving along with it. It'll be afternoon soon.
"So nothing official."
Eddy shakes his head and stares down at his useless legs.
"John... I've never even dared think it until just now."
But now that he has a calm is sinking over him, somehow, and the fist really has left the building, he can't even feel the shadow of it any more. He takes a deep, deep breath and John smiles.
"It's a relief to say it, right?"
He nods again.
"John. What did you mean with maybe?"
Lips tensing and untensing, eyebrows knitting together.
"Oh, it's really not my place, Eddy. It's just... I have a pretty good gaydar and I don't know if I got "only best friend" vibes from you guys, before. Like I said, it wasn't my place, though. Um. Do you have any idea how he feels, though?"
Brett, turning away, shy, in the shower. Holding him in the bed, not moving. Brett, hard the second he knows what he's about to do. It hits Eddy squarely in the face.
Does he?
"Um. He said we'll talk when I'm better."
John nods weightedly.
"Smart man."
"You think so? Okay. Let me ask you, then. Hypothetically, if a guy does... you know, to another guy, to help him out, but you know... something happens to the guy, too. Does that mean he... does?"
This was quite definitely his least coordinated sentence since the tube, but John's smile seems to say that he gets it.
"Yes, Eddy, it means he does, in my experience. In fact, in my admittedly limited experience fully straight men don't help out that way at all."
Eddy stops breathing for the longest time, the seconds ticking away slowly on the clock on the wall, his world falling apart and reshaping around him, exactly the same but different.
"Jesus." he states then.
"Yeah."
"I like him."
"Yeah."
"I want a chocolate orb."
John chuckles out loud.
"That's a bit of a leap? Where would we get a chocolate orb from?"
"Bakery around the corner, they're super good. Wanna go?"
"Sure thing, let's go."