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 Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 7:39 pm
Evan had been growing more and more uncomfortable as the minutes ticked on. He tried to tell himself everything was all right, but the nervousness was bubbling inside of him, twisting his insides uncomfortably. He wanted to get up but fear kept him rooted to the couch. He held his breath and tried to listen. Sometimes, he thought he could make out voices, but other times it was too quiet to hear anything.
Tobias’ house was large; it shouldn’t have surprised him that he couldn’t hear anything.
…A conversation shouldn’t last this long, though.
His heart had started to pound and his anxiety spiked.
Even Maxim had woken up and was sleepily blinking at where Tobias had disappeared to.
Evan continued to pet his head slowly, lightly, trying to ignore the way his hand trembled.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore; he was about to stand up when Tobias appeared.
Tobias. With a swollen face.
His breath hitched and he blurted the male’s name before carefully putting Maxim on the couch and forcing himself up. The blanket he’d been tucked under fell haphazardly and he rushed across the room.
“Who was it, what happened?” he exclaimed, gingerly reaching up a hand as if he were going to brush it across the man’s cheek. He froze an inch away, too afraid of hurting him to assess the damage in that way. Instead, he just looked up at him worriedly. “Are you okay?”
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 8:29 pm
Tobias had almost been hoping that he would be able to sneak into the bathroom before Evan caught him looking like a guy who had lost a fight…because that was what he indeed was but…it wasn’t cool to look so weak in front of Evan.
Quietly though he reached out and placed a finger against the younger male’s nose, giving his normal, easy grin. “I’m fine. Don’t you worry. It was just Zac. Him and I had a few words, he didn’t like some of the things I said and decided my face looked like a good punching bag, but then we came to an understanding, and now he’s gone.”
Tobias watched Evan for a long moment and finally just wrapped his arms around him, holding him close and sighing. “He’s worried about you. They both are. Him and Cambria. But, they’re going to give you your space…they just didn’t want you to think they forgot about you, because they didn’t…and he does ask if you could just text Cambria to let her know that you’re okay…and to text him when you’re up to talking. They’re worried, Ev…and I don’t know. I didn’t hit him, but I sure as hell wanted to for hurting you…but…”
The male sighed again, closing his eyes for a moment.
“…He does care, I think. Even if I do hate him.”
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2018 9:14 pm
Evan’s face darkened when Tobias mentioned it was Zac because of course it was him. He should have known from the beginning and, in a way, he must have. He just wanted to think that maybe he’d been wrong, that Zac wasn’t as much of a barbarian.
At least some things never changed.
He let Tobias hug him; he wanted it, even if he also wanted to be mad right now. His face pressed close and he found himself easily relaxing.
“He shouldn’t have hit you, no matter what you said,” he mumbled. He was shaking, with fear and nervousness and anger, but even Tobias’ reassurances weren’t enough to soothe him.
…He didn’t want to text Cambria or Zac, not right now. He wanted to be mad at them, wanted his anger to carry him away from doing the responsible thing for a while longer. And yet, it was killing him not texting Cambria. He was mad, hurt, and just wanted to feel like it was justified. As soon as he sat down to text her, he knew he’d feel guilty and awful about the things he said—and hew as already feeling bad enough and—
Another sharp pain twisted in his stomach and he forced himself to ignore it. He pressed closer to Tobias and swallowed the burn that tried to ride up his throat.
“I don’t care about him. Them,” he muttered, but the way he had to grip Tobias as he said it betrayed his true feelings; no matter how many times he said it, it would never be true.
He cared more than he wanted to, and it was eating him up to be mad at them.
…Easier, a bit, to be mad at Zac when he was going around hitting Tobias, but he couldn’t just turn off his emotions and pretend like all of this wasn’t tearing him up inside. He hadn’t even really processed the actual information, just the fact that they’d been lying to him.
What Bellite had told him…
That was a whole other issue he had to sort through. After he was done being mad about the lying, the secrets.
…If he was ever done being mad about them.
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Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 7:20 am
Tobias rubbed the male’s back and sighed. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, Ev. I’m not going to push you into talking to them, I was just passing along the message, that’s all.” He wanted to kiss Evan’s head. Wanted to kiss away all of the troubles that were bothering him…but at the same time he didn’t want to sully the boy’s hair with the blood that was still smeared on his face.
“How can I best distract you? We can put our movie back on and pretend like this interruption never happened…I’ll go and get us some ice cream…but first, let me clean off my face, okay? I want to kiss you like it’s nobody’s business but…”
He sighed and drew away slightly. “Getting blood all over you just doesn’t sound like the best idea, honestly.”
Drawing Evan back to the couch, Tobias finally pulled away fully and grinned at him. “Give me two minutes and we can go back to our regularly scheduled program and zone out and just…forget all of this nonsense, okay?”
He wanted to hurry. He knew that Evan was about as not okay as he had ever been but…but there was nothing he could do at this very moment…it would do more to leave him alone for a second. “Be right back, love. Don’t have too much fun without me.”
Tobias quickly disappeared into the bathroom in his bedroom and began cleaning himself up a bit. Thank goodness for his uniform though, at least there was no blood on his clothes. That would have been annoying and a mess that he didn’t want to deal with. He liked this shirt.
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Posted: Sun May 27, 2018 7:25 am
Evan tried.
His muscles had clenched so tightly, all of them, that they were hurting. He hadn’t protested Tobias getting cleaned up but he hadn’t been able to articulate how he wanted to go with him, how he didn’t want to be alone. For a moment, he couldn’t move; his feet were rooted to the ground. Thoughts didn’t come like they should; the rational thing to do would have been to go back to the couch, sit down, and wait.
Tobias would come back, and he would make everything okay, and he would calm Evan down and they’d just watch the movie and he’d hold Maxim and eat—
His stomach churned again and he felt the irritating tickle of agitation creeping up.
The mac and cheese he’d had not to long ago wasn’t far behind him.
One of the benefits of a big house was that there was more than one bathroom; after a few seconds of hesitation, he turned and bolted for the nearest bathroom opposite of Tobias.
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