“You’re awfully quite, Alex,” Zack finally said after minutes and minutes of just sitting across him on the bed and staring at him.

“Well, you haven’t said anything, either,” Alex grumbled, eyebrows creasing as he played with a stray thread on his pillow. It was the day after his and Jack’s little reunion of some sort, and he could already sense the haunting feeling creeping back to him. He cleared his throat, trying to keep his mind away from that.

“Nothing you want to talk about…”

“Nothing that comes to mind.”

“Do you even remember what happened all those years ago, yesterday?”

“Of course I do, how dare you.”

Zack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, staring up at the ceiling for a while. “Alex, do you know why your parents brought me here last year?”

“Because they thought I was troubled with a move that happened 3 years ago,” Alex snorted quietly.

“Yeah, and I’m supposed to be here to help you whenever you search for it, or whether your parents or I see it fit. The only reason why I actually started working with you was because of what happened on this day, and this is the first time in forever that I’m actually here so that you have someone to talk to.” Something seemed to have dawned on him, because he went silent, biting his lip and staring out the window. His eyebrows creased, and his eyes started looking everywhere. Alex knew that look – it’s his thinking face. After a few minutes, he spoke up, “How did you deal with this before I came along?”

“Had my friends to talk to and keep me distracted.” Well, more like friend, and more of screaming and crying.

“You did that today?” Alex nodded. “And it helped?” He nodded again. “So there’s nothing to discuss here? You’re not going to reminisce or anything?”

“You always used to tell me that looking into the past and reliving it will just make it worse,” Alex accused.

Zack smirked. “Nice one. How’s Jack?”

Alex resisted from raising an eyebrow at the sudden change of topic. “He’s fine. Oh! I didn’t tell you!” He felt a sudden palpitating in his heart – excitement. This is something he wouldn’t mind reliving. “He’s my best friend! He even said it himself!”

“That’s nice, Alex.” The smile he gave looked strained.

The younger frowned. “Why aren’t you happy for me? Isn’t that what I’ve been talking to you about for the past year? Wanting to get Jack back?”

“Y-yeah, but…” Alex sat up straight, immediately alarmed by what he was possibly going to say, and raised an eyebrow. Zack sighed. “Just don’t get too ahead of yourself, okay? If you go on like that, what happened before will happen again, and you’ll just go into that long-term depression again.”

“I will not let that hap—“

“I know you’re doing what you can to actually keep him, okay? Just don’t get yourself hurt this time.”

Alex probably shouldn’t be angry at him because he’s just concerned and trying to help him, but he just doesn’t understand. His plan’s been fine so far, and that little tugging at his heart is going away, albeit slowly, but it’s still been according to plan. He believes he’s on the right track, and that he and Jack will be fine – he knows that it’s possible to be friends after a relationship. Besides, they were just going to try that whole relationship thing out the last time; a friendly sort of game between friends, right? He knows it got awkward because he let himself go too far, but he won’t do that this time. Also, the reason why all that shit between them happened was because Alex listened to what other people thought – listening to Zack might as well just skip the whole relationship part of history and go straight to downright hating each other. But Alex doesn’t think he wants history to repeat itself – definitely not the whole ignoring each other part, but maybe everything before that. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at the thought of having to let go of Jack so soon, and he took a deep breath, calming himself down. “We’re just friends right now – best friends, and I’m happy like that. Honestly, I’m still like him-like him a little bit, but I’m working on that. I-It’ll work out this time. The friendship thing, I mean.” Zack gave him a smile, and Alex mentally cursed; he walked into his trap. Now he’ll try to coax it out of him bit by bit, just to know exactly what he’s up to. Too bad for Zack, Alex doesn’t even know what he’s up to. Or, well, he doesn’t have a particular goal; they keep changing every time he experiences something new or different with Jack. Well, at least he stopped asking about the whole Tom business – Alex doesn’t think he could have handled talking about it without running and crying for Jack again, or burning the house down. Alex sighed. “Are we done? I’m gonna call Jack.” He liked the way his name sounded on his tongue.

Zack nodded, still smiling. “Great chatting with you, dickhead, but we’re not done here.”

“Whatever you say, Zack,” Alex chuckled, throwing himself back down against the pillows and grabbing his phone from the bedside table. The door shut and he held down the number 1 and held it up to his ear, heart thumping with every ring. Yes, he still had Jack on speed-dial.

“Hello?” A groggy voice greeted him, and he bit his lip, holding back a smile; he found it cute.

“Hey! Did I wake you up?”

“N-no… What’s up?”

Alex shrugged, though he couldn’t see him. He heard rustling on the other line and a switch going on. Alex imagined Jack staring at himself in the mirror like he usually does when he wakes up. “Nothing, really. Zack tried to get me to talk to him about Tom, thought you should know that.”

“Really? And what did you say?” He sounded really concerned, and Alex couldn’t help but smile even wider.

“Absolutely nothing, until he asked how I dealt with it, and I told him I had a friend to talk to about it. Then he completely dropped it and asked me about you. Strange, isn’t it?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to remind you anymore. I don’t know his tactic, Lex, but he’s the professional one here. I’m just here to provide the cuddles.” Alex liked the way that nickname sounded when Jack said it.

“Those are the best part!”

“So what did he ask about me?” His tone changed a bit, and Alex’s heart ached to reach through the phone and just play with his hair to reassure him. Jack always had this thing about caring too much about what other people thought of him; it made Alex terribly sad.

And he hated lying, but he couldn’t possibly tell him what Zack said – he didn’t even want to hear it. “Just asking how you are. I talk to him a lot about you, so he’s happy to hear that we’re friends again.”

“Aw, no big fight? I was looking forward to being beaten into a pulp, then forced to talk about my feelings.”

They laughed at that, and chatted a bit longer before Zack came back in and told Alex to go back to sleep because he ‘looked like he needed it’, which is just another way of saying that he looks like shit.

“Hope you’re doing fine over there. Just ring me if you need anything.”

“I’d call you up just to annoy you.”

“Oh, fuck off and get to sleep.”

Notes

Title belongs to The Script!! They had a show here last night and I didn't go :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

Here's another to make up for my stupid memory :-(