13: DON'T YOU WANT TO SEE A LITTLE BARRICADE BOY ACTION?
« my heart is stone, and still it trembles. »
"NO."
"IT'S ON our list, Allie!"
"Don't call me that. And I don't care. I am not watching Less Mi –"
"Les. Les Misérables."
Allison sniffs. She dropped French freshman year, anyway. "Whatever. I'm not watching the French one with you. I allowed The Phantom of the Opera, but I draw the line here."
"We have to watch it!"
"We really don't."
Toby looks at her – and there they are – she was wondering when those ridiculous puppy dog eyes would make an appearance.
"C'mon, please? For me?"
Allison arches a brow at him.
"Fine, for your English mark this semester?"
At this, she purses her lips. Toby has a triumphant look in his eye, and for good reason – Allison will do pretty much anything for her grades. "Fine."
"Great!" Toby beams, and she rolls her eyes. "Is next Tuesday good?"
"Can't," she shakes her head, then at Toby's questioning look, she explains: "I have swim practice." She grimaces at the thought.
"I thought you dropped swimming at the start of last year," Toby cocks his head sideways, studying her.
"I did," she says, not even bothering to ask how Toby knew that. "I started again at the beginning of this year for –"
"College apps?"
"Yeah," she makes a face, and Toby chuckles.
"Yeah, laugh," Allison says darkly. "Laugh at me. But you're practically on Julliard's doorstep anyway, so you don't have any idea of my struggle."
"I'm sorry," Toby says, smile still playing on his lips. "I think it's cool, though."
"What, swimming?"
"Yeah," he grins. "What other secret talents have you got hidden up your sleeve?"
"Swimming is hardly a talent," Allison tells him, but her mind drifts immediately to the password protected folder on her laptop, filled with files upon files of scientific research. "And nothing. I'm not a very talented person."
"That's bullshit," Toby snorts.
"Oh yeah? I bet you can't even name three things I'm good at."
"Just three? Easy."
"Go on, then."
"English. Bio. Swimming. Done."
"Yeah, well, it's nothing on you," she informs him, changing the subject slightly. "Toby Martin: singer, dancer, actor, baker, and doughnut maker extraordinaire – "
"I think you're over-exaggerating slightly," Toby interjects.
"I really think I'm not," Allison retorts.
"You are."
"Fine. Name one thing you're not good at."
At this, Toby hesitates. There's a long pause, and he lets his eyes drift to the soccer pitch that they're sitting by (the both of them on best friend duty – Toby here for Daniel, and Allison here for Lydia, who's here for Brad).
"Soccer," Toby says finally, his tone far too triumphant, considering he's highlighting his own flaws. "I am terrible at soccer."
"Right," Allison huffs out a laugh. "Sure you are."
"I am! My co-ordination sucks!"
"Toby," she fixes him with a look. "You're a dancer. Do you even know what poor co-ordination is?"
"I do!" he insists. She rolls her eyes, but decides against pursuing the topic further, because once Toby's made his mind up on something, he can be almost as stubborn as her. Instead, she lets her eyes be drawn, out of force of habit, to Daniel, who's currently in possession of the ball.
"Yeah! You go buddy!" Toby shouts down to Daniel from next to her. "You...kick that ball!"
Allison snorts, but her eyes remain fixed on Daniel until he's passed the ball on. A few rows in front of her is Lydia, who at some point has turned around and is now smirking at Allison whilst mouthing something along the lines of "so not over him".
Allison makes a face at her and turns pointedly back to Toby, who is now staring down at his feet with a slight frown on his face, evidently in deep thought.
"Hey," she says, nudging his knee with hers. "You okay?"
"Huh?" Toby blinks owlishly at her, pulled from his thoughts. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine. Guess I'm just tired."
Allison studies him closely. "Why? Got a lot of homework?"
"Yeah," Toby nods, then pulls slightly further away from her to stretch out into a yawn.
"Your teaches must be killing you," she comments idly, hoping to draw some more out of him.
"Hm?"
"You know. With all that homework you're getting."
"Oh. Yeah."
Allison side-eyes him and says nothing more, but makes a mental note to investigate Toby's consistent lack of sleep as soon as the next opportunity presents itself.
"So," she changes the subject. "When are we going to watch the French one?"
"Les Misérables," Toby corrects absentmindedly, but he purses his lips in thought as he does so. "I don't know," he says. "You've got swim, and I've got Cinderella most days of the week, now..."
Allison remembers Cinderella and how Toby is in it, and for some reason the next thing she thinks of immediately after that is how Laura Bell is Cinderella and how Toby is her Prince Charming and how Laura Bell is super gorgeous.
"Right," she says. "Of course you do."
Toby looks at her strangely, but continues: "We could do a Saturday?" in a hesitant voice. "I mean, I know it's a weekend and all..."
"No, that's fine," Allison shakes her head. "If that's the only time we're both free, we're going to have to."
"Alright," Toby nods. "This Saturday okay?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Cool."
"Great."
An awkward silence ensues, and Allison realises that it's the first one she's ever had with Toby. They both sit side by side and watch wordlessly as Daniel scores a goal.
✦
"But Akhtar asked us to his party on Saturday," Lydia protests lazily as she lies on Allison's bed.
"Akhtar invited you to his party on Saturday," Allison corrects from her desk as she works through another Calculus problem.
At this, Lydia sits up in protest. "He did not," she insists. "He specifically said, me and you."
"Yeah," she snorts.
"He did!"
"Only because he'd be a complete dick if he asked you and not me."
"Allison!"
"C'mon, Lydia. We all know who's the popular one and who isn't."
"You're popular!"
"Popular by association," Allison twists in her chair to shoot her best friend a look that clearly says enough with the bullshit.
"Well, that's not my problem," Lydia returns. "You choose to hate other people."
"I don't hate other people," Allison rolls her eyes. "I'm just selective about the people I spend my time with."
"Yeah, okay."
"Anyway," Allison continues, pointedly ignoring Lydia's scepticism, "I won't be missing the dumb party. I'll just come after we're done. Toby will probably be going too, anyway."
"So you'll be going together?" Lydia smirks.
Allison glares at her. "Why don't you just go and f –"
"Allison!"
Allison sighs and leans slightly towards her bedroom door. "Yeah, mom?"
"I hope I didn't hear what I thought I did!"
"That depends on what you thought you heard," Allison mutters. In a louder tone of voice, she calls: "Sorry, Mom."
"As you should be," her mother's disembodied voice returns from downstairs. "Apologise to Lydia."
"Mom –"
"Apologise!"
Allison turns back to Lydia, who is wearing a smirk to rival that of the Cheshire cat. "I'm sorry, Lydia," she says in a monotone.
"Apology accepted, Allison," Lydia nods, eyes alight with amusement.
"All this for a word I didn't even get to say," Allison mumbles under her breath.
"I love your mom," Lydia sighs in response, letting herself fall back onto the bed once more.
"Everyone loves my mom, apparently," Allison returns to her Calculus, which is, thankfully, almost finished. "Her and Toby get on like a house on fire."
"Toby's met your mom?"
"Unfortunately," she says darkly in response. "Now all I get is "How's Toby? When's Toby coming round again, Allison? Did you see Toby at school today?""
"Well, Toby has that thing where everyone likes him, and your mom has that thing too, so I don't get why you're surprised."
Allison sighs, finishing off the last question and rubbing her temples. She can feel a headache on the distant horizon, and isn't looking forward to it. "I guess."
"You done?"
"Yeah."
Lydia sits up to pat the space beside her on the bed, and Allison obeys her silent command, letting herself flop onto her bed. A few seconds later, and she feels Lydia's fingers begin to run through her hair. Allison sighs, the sensation soothing the throbbing pain in her head, and lets her eyes flutter shut.
They stay like that for a long time in silence, before Lydia says quietly: "You're exhausted."
"Am I?" Allison murmurs, eyes still closed.
"The sleeping not going well?" Lydia questions.
"I..." Allison suddenly finds it difficult to string a coherent sentence together, the overwhelming urge to sleep crashing over her like a wave. "I don't...I've got a headache and I..."
"It's okay, honey," Lydia interrupts in a voice that's beginning to sound more and more like golden syrup filtering through Allison's hearing. "Sleep now, okay?"
"Okay," she mumbles in response, letting her capacity to sense zero in on the feeling of Lydia's fingers against her scalp. "Thanks. Love you."
"Love you too," she thinks she hears Lydia say before she lets sleep completely engulf her.
✦
She wakes up to see Lydia leafing through an ancient copy of Sense and Sensibility that Allison is pretty sure originally belonged to her mom, feet propped up against her desk.
"And Sleeping Beauty finally awakes from her slumber," Lydia comments casually without looking up. "Feel better?"
"Think so," Allison mutters, craning her neck to look at Lydia before deciding it's not actually worth the effort and letting her head slump back against the pillows. The pain of the headache has, she notes, thankfully subsided. "Might need about ten more hours worth of sleep."
"Hm," Lydia hums in agreement as she turns the page of the book. "Well, luckily for you, I just managed to get you tomorrow off, so you'll probably be able to manage those ten hours."
"Wait," Allison says slowly, struggling to let her sleep-sodden brain catch up with Lydia's words. "You convinced my mom to let me stay home from school?"
"You're welcome."
"But..." she blinks, once, twice. "Mom never lets me stay home."
"There's always an exception to the rule, sweetheart," Lydia flips another page. Allison is about to wonder aloud about the emerging consistency of the pet names that Lydia seems to be adopting for her, but promptly decides that she can't be bothered to do that, either, and lets her eyes fall shut. "Shouldn't you be heading home?" Allison queries after some time.
"Nope," Lydia responds cheerfully. "We've both got tomorrow off. I'm staying over to make sure you don't die."
Allison frowns, cracking one eye open. "Lydia..."
"This isn't up for discussion. There's an aspirin and some water on the bedside table for when you decide you can be bothered to lift your ass off the bed."
"Thanks," Allison yawns, sitting up and downing the aforementioned aspirin in a quick movement before letting herself crash back onto the bed. "You're staying the night, then?"
"Mhm."
"Okay. See you in the morning."
✦
Allison and Lydia's sleepovers always start off the same way: that is, they try to lay some basic ground rules about bed halves and comforter stealing, and sometimes even put a pillow between them to ensure basic personal space measures are met, but, come morning, the pillow might as well not exist at all, Allison's stolen all the sheets, and Lydia's always the little spoon.
After four years of waking up to a faceful of strawberry scented shampoo smelling hair and soft snores, Allison only sighs a little before pulling away to stretch out. The movement wakes Lydia, who's a light sleeper anyway, and blinks at her slowly.
"What time is it?" Lydia asks, voice lowered and heavy with sleep.
"I don't know, like..." Allison leans over to press the home button on her phone and check the screen, "eight."
"Alright, I need coffee –"
"No," Allison whines, drawing out the vowel as she catches Lydia's wrist and pulls her back to the bed. She needs the warmth of another body, and is not willing to sacrifice it just yet. "It's still early."
"Allison," Lydia huffs in response, but Allison doesn't miss the way the corners of her lips quirk up ever so slightly.
"One more hour," she mumbles into Lydia's shoulder. "Please?"
"Fine," Lydia concedes in a tone that's meant to be grudging but comes out more amused than anything else. "One more hour, then we're going to have breakfast and do something productive."
✦
As it turns out, one more hour turns into three and half more hours, which means breakfast turns into brunch, and honestly, "something productive" was always going to turn into a Gossip Girl marathon, anyway.
They're whittling down the giant bowl of popcorn originally in place to the last few kernels and Dan and Blair have just got together when the doorbell rings.
"Who's that?" Allison frowns, checking the time. It's only four; too early for her mom to be home from work.
"Oh, probably Toby," Lydia says casually, eyes still fixed to the screen.
Allison sits up from her slouch so quickly she almost knocks over the bowl of popcorn. "What?"
"I said you were ill, and he mentioned how he'd probably come over," Lydia shrugs. "Said something about how you did that for him when he was ill."
"But that was ages ago," Allison protests. "And I'm in my pyjamas!"
"Oh, please, you're in sweatpants," Lydia scoffs, getting up to answer the door. Allison fumes as she hears Lydia greet whoever's at the door; the resulting "Hey, Lydia!" confirms that it is, indeed, Toby.
"...we were watching Gossip Girl," Lydia seems to be explaining to Toby as they both appear in the living room.
"Oh. Okay. I think I've only seen Gossip Girl, like, once," Toby replies, brows furrowed slightly. "Hey, Allison!" he says brightly when he catches her eye.
Allison scowls.
"She's a little grumpy," Lydia stage-whispers to Toby, who is clearly struggling not to laugh. Allison's frown only becomes more pronounced.
"If you're here just to laugh at me, you can both leave," she growls, turning back to the television.
"Actually," Toby says, and Allison knows that tone of voice very, very well.
"No," she shakes her head. "No way."
"But we were going to watch it anyway!" Toby protests, bringing out a DVD case from his bag.
"I am not watching...that on my first day off school in, like, six years."
"What is it?" Lydia glances curiously at the DVD still in Toby's grasp, and grins. "Les Misérables?" she queries, and whatever, Allison thinks to herself darkly, not everyone can speak perfect French and perfect pretty much every other language like Lydia goddamn Huntington. "What's wrong with it? Don't you want to see a little Barricade Boy action, Allison?"
"What?" Allison's frown makes the minute transformation from pissed off to confused.
"She hasn't seen it before, I don't think," Toby tells Lydia.
"I know the basic storyline," Allison defends. "And I tried reading the books last year. But they were long. So I stopped."
Lydia rolls her eyes. "We're watching it."
"I see you've invited yourself to the screening," Allison grumbles as Lydia seats herself next to her and gestures for Toby to do the same on Allison's other side once he's put the DVD into the player.
"Yes, I have," she returns. "Because Aaron Tveit is a very attractive man."
"Who?"
"You'll see," Toby interjects. "Where's your remote?"
Allison extracts the remote from where it's wedged in between her and Lydia and presses play. "I am so going to regret this," she mutters.
✦
Allison regrets it.
Allison regrets it very much.
On one side of her, Toby is sniffling into a tissue, and on her other side, Lydia is attempting to discreetly blink back tears, a sight which Allison thinks she's probably only seen about twice since meeting her.
"Dead," Toby whispers shakily from behind his Kleenex. "They're all dead."
"I noticed," Allison replies dryly, "when he started singing a song about how dead they are."
"You're heartless," Lydia informs her, and Allison can tell that she's trying for a strong, stolid tone of voice, but is failing, because it comes out weak and unsteady.
"You're both ridiculous," Allison rolls her eyes, but she holds out both her hands on either side of her, and the two of them don't hesitate to take one each and squeeze as they watch Jean Valjean be beckoned to his death by Fantine.
✦
"You know, Lydia hasn't actually cried since sophomore year," Allison comments to Toby the next day as they're sat in the library comparing English notes.
"Oh?" Toby looks up from his work to look at her.
"Yeah," she says. "Her heart is literally made of stone."
"My heart is stone, and still it trembles," he quotes in response with a smile playing at his lips. She narrows her eyes at him.
"Please don't tell me that's a quote from the musical."
Toby only shrugs in response. He opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by someone slipping into the seat on the other side of the table.
"Hey guys," says Daniel.
To Allison's credit, Toby looks as shocked about Daniel voluntarily being in the library as she does; however, he recovers more quickly than she does.
"Uh, hey buddy," Toby replies, offering him a smile. "You – you doing homework?"
"Yeah," Daniel nods. "I've got, uh, math. You know."
"Mhm," Allison near-squeaks, because why is her ex-boyfriend so gorgeous?
Toby eyes her strangely, but returns to his notes. Allison attempts to do the same, but is distracted by the feeling of a pair of eyes on her. She looks up and sees that they belong to Daniel.
"What?" she asks, a tiny smile slipping onto her face despite herself.
"Ah, nothing," Daniel shakes his head, a mirroring smile on his lips. "But – ah – how are you?"
"I'm – I'm good," she nods, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, a nervous tick that she allows to show its face despite herself. "You?"
"I'm, uh, I'm good too," Daniel nods, shooting her another hesitant smile.
"That's...that's good."
They fall into a silence heavy with awkwardness after that, and Allison turns to Toby, as though subconsciously expecting him to ease it, but he seems engrossed in his notes. She looks at him for a few seconds later, and notices that he's gripping his pen hard enough that his knuckles are almost white.
"Toby," Daniel says, having also seemed to notice. "Dude, are you okay?"
"Huh?" Toby lets his pen clatter to his desk suddenly, and Allison jumps at the sound. "I'm fine."
Allison glances at Daniel, who, like her, looks far from convinced by Toby's claim. "Toby –"
"Uh, I gotta go," Toby stands up, beginning to pack his things into his bag with ridiculous speed. "I'll see you later, Daniel."
Then he rushes out of the library, leaving Allison to sit opposite her ex-boyfriend and the two of them to stare after him.
______________________________________________________________
a/n: this chapter is literally drowning in allison/lydia scenes but i don't give two shits it's to make up for the all the ones that their namesakes will never have (hahahahahaha fUCK)
if threesomes were more socially acceptable tallydia would already be a thing by now fight me
dedicated to ramona because like five chapters ago she wrote something really gorgeous about how the best relationship in this book so far has been the one between allison and lydia. and that means a lot, because i think it's actually my favourite relationship in the book too.