wasafreak | Amnesia Plot [2 1/2 Weeks In]

Amnesia Plot [2 1/2 Weeks In]

Teddy hasn't hit his breaking point, because he can't break. Billy depends on him. Even if they're not what they should be, even if Teddy misses them every second of every day, Billy depends on him. He's his best friend, the only person he really knows on the island, at this point, and it's only been twenty days, not even three full weeks. So he hasn't hit his breaking point because that's not an option.

He's waiting for Billy, who went to the Compound to shower and get laundry and maybe food, and Teddy feels bad for not going with and loitering but...

He just needs a minute. He just needs a few minutes alone. Knees draw up and arms crossed over them, he tries to not to lose it, to breathe through the emotions he's been keeping under tightest wraps, but they're still threatening to rip out of him. He's so tired all the time, and he feels so damn lonely.

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"Kinda," Billy agrees, attempting a smile. There's no real way to salvage what just happened, so at least admitting it helps.

Maybe.

"Yeah, it's...it is."

Teddy pulls in a deep breath and lets it out in a steady rush.

"Billy, there's... I haven't told you some things, because it... it's hard to know what's okay to say. What's fair and what isn't. This- Me and Max-" He shakes his head a little, looking up at Billy.

"There is no me and Maxxie, is what I'm trying to say."

"Oh." It wasn't a question Billy had been willing to ask, and he's grateful Teddy answers it without being prompted. "I-- I wasn't...okay, yeah, it looked kinda like something, but I wasn't judging or anything, just..." He shrugs.

Having it out in the open helps a little, but it doesn't solve the problem Billy has of not knowing what to say. At all. He assumes he gets a little better at it as he grows up, but right now, he's still fifteen and trying so hard to be the more grown up version of himself everyone says he is.

"No," Teddy says, and he wants to feel relieved because Billy seems relieved.

"He was just being a good friend. In a one hundred percent platonic way."

"He's...Maxxie's a really good friend." Billy so badly wants to make a joke to ease the tension but nothing sounds appropriate, so he bites his tongue and walks over to the bed, sitting down next to Teddy. Maxxie has been a great friend to Billy -- most of his new-old friends have, and he constantly has to remind himself of that fact.

"So are you," he tells Teddy. "I'm really lucky to have you."

He knows before he does it that it's dumb, but to say Teddy's feeling a little off-center would be putting it lightly. He slides his hand over the blankets until his fingers are settled over Billy's, watching him.

"Good," he says quietly, "I'm glad. That I've been a good friend. I just want..." He swallows, looking down, past his knee, to the floor.

"That's all I want."

Billy's hand twitches under Teddy's, but he doesn't move. The contact is enough, and when he looks over at Teddy, it's to find him looking away.

He isn't sure he believes what Teddy's saying, but he's less sure he can be anything but a friend right now. Billy can barely work through his own feelings, let alone work on figuring someone else's out, though he thinks he has a decent idea of Teddy's at any given time.

And he's probably just projecting anyway.

"Me too. Well, actually, I want to be a better friend. So to start doing that, I say you're taking the bed tonight."

He could protest- looks for a moment as though he's going to- but doesn't. Just presses his lips together and nods a little, then smiles over at him and squeezes his hand before drawing it away.

"Okay, deal." He lets out a short breath, scrubbing a hand over his face.

"I kind of feel like I'm gonna crash. Is it completely lame if I take a nap?" he asks, offering Billy an abashed, uneven smile.

"Not lame," Billy says, glad that the awkwardness has passed. He's got a lot to think on now, but he's happy to see that smile back on Teddy's face. "You look like you need it."

"Thanks," Teddy says, scooting back, the promise of sleep almost overwhelming in its awesomeness. He will be much less an awkward idiot if he can just get some good, solid sleep, he thinks.

"Um, my iPad's charged, it has Angry Birds and some stuff on it, if you get bored. It's not locked," he says, lying down on his side, eyes going half lidded the moment his head hits the pillow.

"Don't lemme sleep too long, kay?"

"Sure," Billy says, lying outright. Teddy looks so exhausted that he really can't wake him up before he gets all the sleep he needs. "Sorry in advance if you wake up and I've beaten all your Angry Birds scores," he adds as he reaches over to the side table to pick up the iPad.

Teddy huffs a quiet laugh half into the pillow, eyes sliding shut. His mouth curls faintly into a smile and he murmurs, "I'll forgive you," before falling abruptly and deeply asleep.

Billy snorts as he watches Teddy fall asleep, the ease of which is pretty impressive. He's glad for it, and finds himself relaxing completely. While they'd sort of sorted things out, there's still a ton of guilt sitting on Billy's shoulders. He settles onto the bed as well, sitting against the headboard.

He tries not to watch Teddy sleep. He really, really does.

Angry Birds gets boring after a while, and after a brief walk with Diana, Billy goes through some of the other games on the iPad. They're enough to entertain him, but when Diana falls asleep curled up against Teddy's back, Billy switches to the camera and takes a picture before he can think about it. It's too adorable not to.

He's trying to come up with a cute title for the picture when his thumb accidentally swipes it over to another picture of Diana mid jump toward the camera. The next swipe is almost accidental, but it's another picture of Diana, and Billy has no real excuse after that one. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he doesn't think anything of it until he swipes past a few pictures that look like...well, no, they don't look like anything, they are him and Teddy hanging out.

Except hanging out isn't the right phrase for it. There are a few of Teddy laughing as he tries to avoid the camera, a couple of them making faces at it, and some that weren't taken by either of them, because they're both in the picture, and obviously together.

Billy stops on a slightly blurred picture of Teddy kissing him -- kissing the version of him that remembered everything about the past two years, and it all starts to make sense. Everything does. And Billy can't even rationalize this away, not like he did the moments of attraction to Teddy, or the few times he'd catch him looking at him in a weird way, he can't explain any of it away because he'd known it from the first day.

He just hadn't been able to face it before.

He stares at the picture, the iPad sitting untouched on his lap until the screen fades out. Beside him, Teddy stirs.

Diana is asleep against his back, Teddy can feel her little breaths. They make her shoulder blades dig into his spine.

"Hey, puppy," he mumbles, reaching over his own waist to scratch at her fur, and realizes she's not the only other body on the bed. He blinks, looking blearily at Billy, and starts to smile but ends up yawning. He scrubs his hand over his face, almost starting to sit up, but sink down again. He feels better, but groggy, like he could sleep through til the next day.

"Hey, Billy," he says, "how long was I... out?"

Something's off. Something in Billy's posture, visible in his expression as Teddy wakes up further and his vision clears. He blinks a few times until his eyes are open all the way, the sleepiness in his expression gone.

Edited 2012-07-03 03:27 (UTC)

Billy blinks a few times as he realizes Teddy's woken, and he shakes his head in response. "Um, not too long. About two hours."

He has to think this through. He can't just blurt it out without at least figuring out what he thinks among the tangle of emotion threatening to choke him.

Teddy slowly pushes him upright, absently settling a hand on Diana's head, which stops her from stirring and puts her right back to sleep. Like a charm.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, because even if Billy's endeavoring to seem casual and fine, Teddy knows he's not. He can always tell.

Everything kinda makes sense now, especially how well Teddy knows him. Which makes not talking about this a little harder than Billy had anticipated.

"So...don't get mad or anything, but I just..." He holds up the iPad and gives Teddy a look that's pure apology and the rest of his words come out in a rush. "I wanted to take a picture of you and Diana sleeping, and I saw the others."

That earns a frown, just because Teddy's not sure how that's worth apologizing over, until he takes the iPad from Billy's hand and looks down.

He's got an arm slung across the front of Billy's hips and is leaning in, ducking his head to catch his mouth a warm, playful kiss. It's a little blurred, probably because Chase was laughing or giving them a hard time while he took it, and party because it's an unintentional action shot. Billy doesn't look surprised. teddy can see the place where his mouth turns up, the fact that he's smiling into the kiss, pretty clearly. It's a great picture, one of his favorite pictures.

"...oh," he says quietly, not looking up. Crap.

"...oh," he says again, because what the hell is he supposed to say. Sorry I've been lying to you for almost three weeks.

"Billy, I can... explain this."

It's pretty self explanatory, to be honest.

"You...you don't have to," Billy answers. He doesn't want to make Teddy explain anything; he sort of gets why he never outright mentioned it, and Billy almost appreciates it. He freaked out waking up in bed with him, trying to live up to a whole relationship would have been too much.

"I get it. Why you didn't say anything."

It's not that he was hoping Billy would be angry, or upset, but he wouldn't have been surprised by it. He's not sure how he would have reacted, in Billy's place.

"Because everything was going to be weird and complicated enough," he says quietly, nodding a little. He swallows, pressing the button at the bottom of the screen to darken it.

"Something like that," Billy agrees. Actually, it's exactly like that. Except Billy had spent his time confused, whereas Teddy spent it with a boyfriend who didn't even recognize him anymore.

It was like playing a game of who had it worse.

Billy is totally calm. Teddy's a bit thrown by it, but he knows he should just be grateful.

"Do you have questions?" he asks, because it's the only thing he can think to say other than I love you and also can I touch you a lot now.

He has a ton of questions, starting with how they got together, but all Billy can think about is the fact that he's had a boyfriend god knows how long and he doesn't remember any of it. He doesn't know what his first kiss felt like, he doesn't know what it's like to have someone that close, he doesn't know if he's introduced Teddy to his parents or if he knows Teddy's parents, he doesn't know any of it, and he's supposed to.

He sets the iPad down on the bed between them, and gets out of the bed. "I need to..." Billy brushes hair out of his eyes and looks at Teddy, to make sure he knows he isn't freaking out, but it's just too much.

Okay, no, maybe he's freaking out a little. "I need to go. And...think."

So maybe not totally. This is twice in the span of a few hours that Teddy has desperately wanted to ask someone to stay and not known how. It doesn't feel any better with Billy than it had with Max.

"Sure," he says, voice a little strained, nodding a little unevenly.

"Sure, of course."

He feels awful -- both in dealing with the realization and for what feels like abandoning Teddy, but Billy isn't sure he can do anything with Teddy sitting right there. He hadn't even been realizing how much he'd been hurting him and is still hurting him, right now.

"I just need some air. I'll be back soon," he promises, "and then we-- we can talk."

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wasafreak - 2012-07-08 06:01 (UTC) - Expand

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