Attachments (Tronnor AU)

Table

noun

       • a piece of furniture consisting of a slab or board on legs; the people seated around a table; supply of food; a list arranged for reference or comparison.

adjective

       • of, on or at a table.  

transitive verb

       • to submit, put forward; to postpone indefinitely.  

"Sounds like you overreacted to me, mate," Dan comments with a disinterested shrug, leaning back against the park wall with a slow drag of his blunt. Towering above him where he stands at his side, Troye frowns out at the busy road before them and watches the cars whizzing by. He hums, but doesn't grace his companion's remark with a linguistic response.

Sighing, Dan props himself up a little straighter and gives him a vaguely appraising look before glancing away again to the passerbys stepping over his outstretched legs. "I mean, it's a touchy subject and all, but so what? How was he supposed to know? Honestly, I think you're just looking for reasons to drop him and run. You've got a bad habit of not giving most people a first chance, let alone a second. Especially when they probably deserve a hundred."

Silence follows, punctuated by the ever-present buzz from the park behind them and the steady roar of the vehicles before them. The air is crisp with the promise of the approaching November chill and fresh with the dew still settled on crumpled morning leaves. The nine-to-five shifts are commencing, herds of successfully employed hard workers rushing to and fro with more than ten minutes to spare, and there's a kindergarten class walking hand in hand through the park entrance they're seated near.

Troye sighs in much the same way as Dan. "I didn't ask what you thought," he replies quietly. "I just wanted you to know I'd be around more again, like I used to."

Dan makes a noise of acknowledgement, drawing in another deep drag of the joint in his hand. "You gonna be playing Tuesdays here now, then? The street's missed your depressing acoustics."

Shrugging, Troye digs his fingers into the crevices of his jean pockets, staring blankly down at his scuffed converse stationed half on grass and half on cracked pavement. "Yeah," he replies eventually, tousling his dark curls away from his face as the breeze picks up.

"Oh," Dan starts in suddenly, a light bulb of refreshed memory sparking up above his unkempt head. "That reminds me. Some guy came 'round looking for you the other day, didn't say what for."

Troye blinks, a wispy cloud of confusion settling over him as he turns to glance down at his accomplice. He doesn't think it would be his social worker, she's always been entirely unconcerned with his current whereabouts, but he can't think of any reason for someone else to come looking for him. If it were his social worker he could at least write it off as the man he was meant to be staying with having reported him missing, but that's a notion Troye deems entirely unlikely. The senile old scumbag probably hasn't even noticed he's gone.

Dan seems to catch his inner dialogue without him having to voice it out loud, his freaky perceptive wisdom coming into play as per usual. Shrugging, he sinks back a little more comfortably against the stone wall behind him and gives Troye a wholly unconcerned look. "Don't know who he was. Seemed harmless, though. Probably just one of those good Samaritan types- saw you playing one day and thought he'd be a goodie two shoes, try to set you on 'the right path' or something."

Troye shakes it off, Dan's apathetic nature rubbing off on him as easily as ever, and gives the grass peeking out from under the wall one good kick before sinking down onto it. He opens his mouth, words bubbling up his throat before he realizes they're not related to a topic he really wants to discuss. Closing it again, he instead drums up the beginnings of a common conversation of theirs.

"You keep smoking that shit and you'll go psycho before thirty," he tosses out, raising a judgmental eyebrow towards the joint pinched between his friend's fingers.

Dan doesn't appear at all concerned by his statement. "Nah, the schizos are the ones who get into the hard shit and don't stop. Weed just dopes you out a little, makes you feel better."

Troye frowns, but decides to just let sleeping beasts rest for once. He's too drained to really get into it with him, despite how much he usually ends up enjoying their regular banter. He lets out a breath, instead giving into the growing urge to explore their earlier subject of conversation.

"I know I'm overreacting," he admits, drawing a leg up to play with the tattered off-white laces of his shoes. Troye's blue eyes remain fixed steadily on the sidewalk at their feet, magnets repelled by the brown beacons of his acquaintance of nearly three years now. Dan doesn't say anything, not in the silence Troye leaves hanging between them, and he takes it upon himself to fill it by adding in a soft tone, "I just got freaked out, you know? We're from two entirely different worlds and I think I could kind of forget that when we were both out on the streets, but then I'm standing in his apartment and it's like, he has an apartment. He goes to school and he lives in a nice place and he takes cool pictures with an expensive camera and how am I supposed to compare to that? How do I fit into that?

I know, I know. I'm not giving him a chance and all that bullshit, but that's the problem, Dan. If I give him a chance and I get more invested than I already am and then it all goes to shit, it'll just be so much worse. Like, isn't it better to just cut it off now before he realizes I'm not anywhere near his level and save myself that much more heartache?"

Troye takes a deep breath after he's done, picking a strand of his laces to shreds before forcing his head up to watch the people stepping over them like they're not even worth a second glance. Like they're not anymore human than the cracks in the pavement they're stationed on.

From the corner of his eye, he notes Dan grinding what's left of his blunt into the grass.

"Maybe," the older of the two boys admits thoughtfully. "Then again, maybe you are on his hypothetical level."

Troye's about to cut in, opening his mouth to throw out every objection in the book they've been writing since they met, but Dan's waving hand cuts him off as firm brown eyes fix solidly on his own. It's a war, a hurricane against an earthquake to compare their separate devastations.

The earthquake wins.

"You're a good person, Troye. Better than most, I'd say. You're smart and resourceful and you're stronger than a lot of the assholes I've had the displeasure of knowing. More than that, you could actually do something with your life. You're not just some talentless moron who doesn't know shit- you've got those wicked riffs on the piano you do and your singing is way more bearable than most the crap they've got pumping out of the stereos nowadays.

Brain-wise, you're up there with penthouses and yachts and skeevy political schemes, not out here rotting on the streets. So what if you live penny to penny and he's attending some fancy-ass college? It doesn't mean you're any less brilliant than he is or any less worthy. You've got a lot more going for you than you seem to think."

Troye blinks. Dan settles back against the frigid stone wall and flicks open his pack of cigarettes, frowning when he notes all the weed-packed joints are gone. He sighs indifferently, pulling out an ordinary cancer stick and lighting it in the shelter of his cupped hands.

"Wow," Troye comments, sinking back against the wall as well. He lets the words settle over him, frowning in deep thought as he tilts his head back to watch the early morning sky. Smiling almost imperceptibly, he throws out a light-hearted, "You're going soft, Dan. I had no idea you loved me so much."

Dan shoves him. Troye laughs.