Broken String

CXXXV

"Are you okay?" Brett asks once they're safely in their room, his mum calmed down and dispatched home, dinner done, D&D played, the house stilling on the other side of the closed door. They sit side by side on the bed as Eddy tries to keep his breath even.
"Not really. I was okay earlier but now I'm freaking out." Eddy tells him honestly. "You?"
Brett smiles wryly.
"Yeah, I'm not that much better."
"Fuck. Okay. Tell me something to distract me?"
His eyes are already trained on Brett's sweet face so he sees the little eyebrow rise before it really happens, he watches as his eyes hood over and his breath stops. 
Wait. What the hell? Did he say something wrong? Should he... 
"Something to distract you?" Brett says quietly before he can ask. "Okay. So I have an admission to make." 
"Oh?" 
Brett nods and looks down at his legs, almost like he's embarrassed. No, exactly like he's embarrassed.
"Um. You remember the dream." he says in a half whisper. "Um. That dream. So... I've wanted to tell you for a while that I woke up a little earlier, that night. Because um, you..."
His voice trails away as Eddy's face colours fast and any worry he's felt flies out to the perimeter. Oh, God, Brett is bringing up that fucking wet dream again and sure, he knows now that some good came off that dream, at least for the time being, but does that make it any less embarrassing? And why is he even saying this now? Just to distract him from the doom that waits for him tomorrow at the doctors'? Because in that case it's working, all of his thoughts are now with how much he shamed himself that night.

"Fuck it. What did I do?" he says, just about stopping himself from throwing both hands in front of his face, preschooler style.
"Um. You moaned, softly." Brett admits. "Moved a little. You know, that way. I guessed what was happening."
The crimson embarrassment floods Eddy hard.
"God." he manages, one hand making its way up to his face anyway. "I thought this was your admission? Why didn't you wake me up, if you knew I was about to... you know?"
A second, just half a second of silence, those strangely hooded eyes that look just ever so slightly past Eddy's face and Eddy knows that somehow this is something Brett doesn't really want to say. Maybe something he was never going to say. But why? Surely the answer is clear? He just didn't want to wake him up and rob him of his orgasm?
Brett is like that, you know. Selfless.
"You didn't want me to wake up and be frustrated, right?" he says through the crimson.
But Brett shakes his head.
"Sure, that was part of it. I guess I wouldn't ever have woken you up at that moment, even before. I guess the admission is..." he takes a deep breath and averts his hooded eyes. "Um. I kinda liked seeing it."

The shock drives out any fear, any crimson, any embarrassment.
Wha... he liked seeing it?
Even before?
Pictures of a younger, more innocent Eddy, a stupider Eddy, one before scans, before pain, before getting stuck on toilets, before any of it enter his head and his mouth opens before he can stop it. It's not like he has a filter anymore, anyway.
"I wanked to BTS, that day you knocked on my door and gave me a weird look." he blurts out.
Now Brett does turn and finally looks straight at him, eyes wide.
"For real? I... Oh! And that day, when Ian showed us the clips?"
Eddy's lips curl up in a shy smile.
"That didn't help my cause at the time."
Brett is quiet for a long, long moment. Then he shakes his head.
"I knew you'd wanked, of course. Your face... it has this red thing it does, after. Your eyes shine."
"Oh God." Eddy groans, both hands now actually flying up to cover his face. But Brett's hand is on his shoulder.
"Hey. It meant nothing. I'm your best friend. Um. Well. You know."
Eddy looks at him through his fingers as those last two words resound around the room, so offhand, so common. So meaningful.
You know.
Does he know? Is he sure?
"Would it have changed anything if you'd have known to what?" he says instead of asking the other question, the Question Who Shall Not Be Named. Not until he's better. Brett grins softly and shrugs.
"It's probably better I didn't know."
"It's probably better I didn't know then what you just told me." Eddy responds.

Because it's true, you see. It would have shocked him, back then, he would have had no idea where to put that. Just like the BTS thing probably would have shocked Brett. You can't go from one big thing like being lifelong best friends to...
Not in one moment, you can't.
His heart beats erratically because is there a way back to that, from here? You know, if Brett decides he doesn't like him that way anymore?
He already knows there isn't.

Just like he knows there is no way he's ever going to feel differently about this man, ever again in his life.