Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s…awkward.

That’s the best Adam can describe how it feels to go up to the roof with Charlie with a couple of illicit beers, ditching the loud end-of-year party to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in silence and watch the trees swaying quietly in the warm breeze of a June night.

It’s awkward, and that makes Adam’s stomach seize up, twisting into uncomfortable, guilty knots. It has been months since the Varsity-Jr. Varsity game. Months since he has returned to the Ducks and to the JV dorms, weathering the storm of his father’s baffled disappointment. His father, and everyone else who bothered to state an opinion on the matter. But Adam hadn’t cared then, and he doesn’t regret the decision now.

He'll play varsity later – when he’s older, when his friends and teammates graduate up to varsity as they ultimately will. It’s a sport. A sport he loves very much, but it wasn’t worth it in the end. It wasn’t worth the months of guilt and shame and loneliness. He had fought so hard to be just one of the Ducks, one of a group of friends. Someone Charlie looked at with friendship, with affection, with—

Eden Hall began making him into an outsider again. Or, perhaps, reminding him where his place is. The natural order of things, as his parents would put it.

But Adam doesn’t want that. He might have before, to the extent a child wants such things. He might have, in another life, or in this one, if things had gone differently. But he doesn’t want it now. He doesn’t want to be the bully, the rich douchebag, the traitor. He had slipped so easily into that role, and he can’t stand it that he had.

Even worse, he can’t stand that they never talked about it.

Charlie went from yea right, cake eater and go cry to your rich daddy to you had one of us – Banksie as though the code switch was nothing, as though Adam found his way back to the team and there was no conversation to be had about it.

But there was. Adam could sense it, even now it sits suffocatingly between them – the set of Charlie’s shoulders, the silence, the way Charlie won’t meet his eyes.

Where does he start? What does he say? What does Charlie want to hear? An apology? An explanation? A promise it won’t happen again? Which of those can Adam bring himself to offer?

Should being a teenager drinking an illicit beer on the roof of the school dorms with his best friend be so hard?

Adam waits, but Charlie merely sits down and doesn’t say anything. Barely acknowledges that Adam is there. Maybe he is nervous too.

“You still, ah, seeing that one girl?” Adam asks, for lack of anything better to say. “I didn’t see her at the party.” He had watched Charlie kissing some preppy girl with long brown hair after the Varsity-JV game and had pretended it did not feel like getting punched in the stomach. He has no reason to feel like that – it’s selfish, stupid, childish. It’s—not something Adam can handle it being just now.

Charlie huffs out a laugh. “Linda? No. That—I probably should have realized that wouldn’t work out. She’s nice. And pretty. But…” He shrugs again.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says, because that’s what one is supposed to say in such situations, he’s fairly certain.

“It’s fine. What about you? Pick up any cheerleaders while on Varsity?”

The tone is forced – Adam can tell. This isn’t Charlie. Not his Charlie. If his Charlie is even a thing anymore. Still, Adam feels his face growing warm. He’s happy for the dark of late evening, then. “You know I haven’t,” he says quietly.

Charlie nudges him with his shoulder. “Come on, Banksie. You’re very quiet.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to say, Charlie?”

They’re silent for another moment. “I don’t know. I just came up here to get away from some of the noise. Finals sucked and I’m exhausted. Eden Hall is an opportunity – I’m sick of hearing it, even if it’s true.”

Adam laughs. “Yea, finals did sucks.”

“You should go back down.”

“To watch Averman chug hot sauce?”

Charlie snorts a laugh. “Ok, maybe not.”

More silence. From downstairs, laughter and shouting and muffled music float up into the evening air. The humid warmth is almost suffocating. Adam feels like he might burst. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he admits finally.

“Yea?’ Charlie asks, angling himself toward Adam in a show that he is ready to listen.

Adam nods resolutely. “About—We never talked about. What happened. Earlier this year.”

Charlie’s shoulders drop, deflate. He is still angled toward Adam but his eyes skid away. “There’s not much to talk about. You were on Varsity. I lost my shit, left the team and almost dropped out of school. Then we all came back together—Bombay came back. Orion pulled the stick out of his ass a bit. We beat Varsity and now we’re all back together again, like we should have been from the start. Not much to talk about.”

“Oh really, that’s all that happened? So easy?” Adam feels new heat rising in him. He is…angry. Almost. A little. If it had all been that simple, it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“What do you want me to say?” Charlie throws his hands up. “That it hurt to see you walk away from us? To know you were laughing at us with the rest of this fucking, snob-hell school—”

“That’s not what I was doing!” Adam protests. “And the fact you still think that is why we need to talk to begin with.”

“Oh sure, you were begging your Varsity teammates to not start shit—”

“The Ducks can give as good as they get.”

“We didn’t start this! They never wanted us at their precious school, or don’t you see that even now?”

Adam wants to fold in on himself. He does see it. He had seen it. But his teammates had been older. He is not immune to wanting acceptance, wanting to be cool. “It wasn’t up to me. I couldn’t stop them.”

“And you couldn’t have warned us about the dinner?”

“I didn’t know!” Adam jumps to his feet. “I told you I didn’t know until it was too late.”

Charlie stands as well – it’s like the months had never passed, like they are back on the rink in the pre-dawn gloom. Like the shame is fresh. “Bullshit. I saw your face when you left. I didn’t get it then, but I got it later. You knew, and you didn’t say shit.”

“It would have changed nothing by then!”

“You could have tried! You could have stayed yourself at least.”

Stayed and been ridiculed. Hated by his former friends; disrespected by his new team. Or had he simply been a coward?

“Do you know how we paid that bill?”

Adam closes his eyes. Shakes his head. He doesn’t know. Another point of guilt – he hadn’t even asked.

“We worked for it, cake eater.” There’s almost an amused note in Charlie’s voice. “Washing dishes and bathrooms. It could have been worse, I guess. Most of us have done that kind of work. But not you.”

Not him. It always comes down to that doesn’t it? Adam is always the one who doesn’t get it, who is different, who doesn’t understand. He wants to, but everyone thinks he should simply get it. Tears sting his eyes and he blinks them hastily away. That’s one too many humiliations than he can handle. “I’m sorry,” he forces out, rough and strangled, like the words are planted somewhere deep inside him and saying them is pulling them out with the roots. “I’m sorry, Charlie. Is that what you want to hear?”

Charlie scoffs and looks away. “Not if you don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it!” He does. He does. Isn’t it enough? Will his intentions, his friendship always be questioned? Will every mistake he ever makes be just another reason for the pile of proof why he can never be good enough, just another reason for someone to say see, should never have trusted him. The apology he had ripped out from inside his chest has left an emptiness, and now that emptiness floods with something bitter and vile. Something Adam knows he will regret later but is losing control over. “But you don’t believe me. Like always.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie snaps, bristling. Suddenly, he’s staring at Adam again, eyes ablaze and ready for a fight.

“You always just—assume the worst about me. That I wanted to participate in bullying you guys. That I wanted to leave the team to begin with—”

“You didn’t want to play Varsity? Really?” Charlie isn’t hiding the mockery from his tone.

Adam feels like he’s suffocating. The words come out before he can stop them. “I tried to tell you that I didn’t know about the dinner, about the set up. I begged you to believe me. But you wouldn’t! You wouldn’t even let me explain!”

“You’re not the victim here!”

“I didn’t say I was! But you acted like I betrayed you before the pranks even began—”

“Pranks?”

“—You acted like I betrayed you just by—by—” Adam takes a gulping breath of air and forces himself to finish. “Making Varsity.” They stare at each other in cold silence for several heartbeats.

Finally, Charlie says, with stunned derision, “You think I was jealous of you making Varsity? That’s your conclusion?”

“Were you?”

“For fuck’s—” He makes an exaggerated gesture with his shoulders that Adam can’t quite read. “Ok, yea, maybe a little. Everyone was. Who wouldn’t be envious? But that was never the point.”

“You weren’t happy for me, I know that.”

“You know fuck all.” Charlie runs a hand over his face. “Again, you’re not the victim here. Not with what those fucks tried to do to us and you just standing by.”

Some realization settles in Adam’s stomach and the emotions it causes within him are so muddled and incomprehensible he doesn’t even try to parse them out in that moment. Mostly, he feels sick. “And if they hadn’t? If Varsity had just minded their own business, would you have still sat next to me in class and invited me to play pick up after school? Would everything have continued as before, just playing on different teams?”

“…Sure.”

“You had to think about that.”

Charlie rubs a hand over his face. “You left, Adam. You left us behind—”

“You almost left the team, too!” Adam begins to protest.

“You left me.” The words hang heavy between them. In the dark, it’s hard to tell, but Adam thinks Charlie might be blushing. Then he shakes his head sharply and says, “Forget I said that. I was just pissed. It wasn’t worth bringing all up again.”

Charlie starts to turn away, and a sudden stab of panic breaks through the ringing in Adam’s ears, the realization that had begun settling in his stomach earlier suddenly exploding into a certainty and a need. Adam reaches out and grabs Charlie’s arm, turning him around. “Wait.” Charlie freezes but doesn’t let Adam drag him back around so they are face to face. More softly, Adam repeats, “Wait.”

Charlie stands there, looking down, shoulders up defensively. He has the expression of someone who has said too much, who has allowed themselves to be vulnerable in a way they are afraid of being punished for. No one has talked about it much in the intervening months, but Adam has been able to gather from scraps there and here that Charlie had taken Bombay resigning as their coach especially hard. He had also clashed phenomenally with Orion in the beginning, and then there was the loss of Hans…

“I didn’t mean to leave you,” Adam says, hoping that Charlie hears in his voice whatever Adam can’t get through in words. “That was—that was the last thing I wanted to do. If it makes you feel any better, I was miserable too. I should have done more—I’m sorry. I told you I mean it. The Ducks have been the best thing to happen to me.” Adam lets go of Charlie’s arm and stares at his shoes. Words tumble out of him, reckless. “You were the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“What are you saying, Banksie?” Charlie breathes into the space between them.

The air is suddenly too warm, too thick. Adam can’t breathe. “I don’t… Just that I want you to understand that none of what happened was my intention or anything I wanted. I don’t care where people think I belong or you belong. I want—I just want us to be ok. The Ducks but—Especially me and you.” Adam looks up, suddenly aware of his heart hammering in his chest. He had wanted to have this conversation, to clear the air. But he feels suddenly that things have gotten far more out of control than he had expected or wanted, that the conversation has veered into new and uncharted territory.

He meets Charlie’s eyes. In the dark, they stare at each other for several moments. Too close. Too intimate.

Charlie reaches out and cups the side of Adam’s face. His palm is warm against Adam’s skin and Adam feels his entire body shudder at the contact, goosebumps running down his spine. The exhilaration is overwhelming and any words he might have wanted to say are immediately vaporized inside him before they can even form. “We’re ok,” Charlie says. “We’re gonna be ok.”

Numbly, Adam reaches up and puts his hand against Charlie’s, pressing it firmly against his skin. He forces a small smile. “Promise?”

Charlie smiles back, amused, eyes suddenly soft. “Yea. I promise.”