Trophy Eyes.

Aled’s sitting on his bed, messing around with his laptop, in the hotel room on Monday night when there’s an obnoxious knock on the door. He sighs and drags himself up.

He opens the door and Jack bounds in, a huge grin on his face. Aled watches him for a second before laughing and shaking his head. He walks back to his bed and carries on writing the email to his sister.

“What you doing?” Jack asks, landing next to Aled and resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Emailing my sister.” Aled replies, not looking at Jack as he types furiously.

“Sounds thrilling.” Jack sighs, throwing himself back onto the bed. Aled bashes the send icon a few times; until he’s satisfied the email has sent.

He hangs over the edge of his bed and forages for his webcam, which he produces after a minute or so.

“Come on, you can help with this.” Aled says, plugging the device in, “I have to blog for my class to see what it’s like over here.”

Jack hauls himself up, sitting dejectedly next to Aled.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Aled asks, not looking away from the screen.

“Alex and Joe threw me out. Said they needed to practice their thing for Spanish, and I’m apparently a ‘distraction’.” The contempt is obvious in Jack’s voice.

“Well, yeah. Alex would spend all his time feeling you up and not doing Spanish.” Aled replies, like it’s the most obvious thing ever. Jack narrows his eyes as Aled opens his webcam software. He presses record and laughs a little at Jack’s expression.

“Quit sulking.” He giggles, pushing him lightly. Jack grumbles inanely and folds his arms.

“Guys, this is Jack,” Aled laughs, gesturing at the American, “and he’s sulking because his boyfriend’s hanging with his brother and not him.”

“That is not true!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Aled smirks, waving a hand at Jack, who pouts adorably.

“Anyway, since I’m coming back to rainy old Wales on Saturday, I thought I’d make a video as often as I can this week and email them to you.” Aled says to the camera, sticking a thumb up and nodding.

“And today, as you can see, Jack’s decided to join me.”

Aled looks back and sees Jack playing with the duvet.

“Jack. Say hey.” Aled instructs, nodding at the camera. Jack looks up and his face looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Uh… Hey Wales.” He says quietly, waving half-heartedly. Aled laughs a little and Jack glares at him.

“He’s just shy.” Aled says to the camera, with a smile. Jack’s head snaps up and he shoots another glare in Aled’s direction.

“I am not shy!”

*

Tuesday comes, and Alex and Joe end up carrying a massive binder each for Spanish class. As they thud down on the teacher’s desk, he looks up in surprise.

“You got Alex to do work?” He asks, shock evident in his voice. Joe nods with a smirk and he and Alex high-five victoriously. The teacher shakes his head and chuckles quietly as the two of them leave.

“Are we practicing tonight?” Alex asks as they walk down the corridor. Joe shakes his head.

“No, I think you should hang out with Jack. I think he feels a little pushed out.”

Alex looks down the corridor to where Jack is leaning on his locker staring out, a sad expression on his face. Alex nods at Joe’s suggestion and walks down to his boyfriend.

“Are you busy tonight?” Alex asks, placing one hand above Jack’s shoulder and leaning in slightly.

“Don’t you have to do Spanish?” Jack asks, not looking at Alex long enough for the elder to grasp how sad he is.

“No. You’re more important to me than good grades. Come on, I wanna take you out somewhere.” Alex says quietly. Jack flashes a smile at his words.

“Okay, fine.” Jack replies with a fake sigh.

“Awesome.” Alex replies, a grin playing on his lips. He kisses Jack gently and the younger forgets why he was mad in the first place.

*

The next day, Aled discovers, is Spring Dance day. He finds this out because Jack comes skipping down the corridor to his locker singing something along the lines of ‘I’m going to the dance with Alex!’

Aled smiles at his bubbly friend and holds back a sigh; Daniel never asked him. Sure, he brought it up, but he never actually asked.

Aled opens his locker and a creamy yellow envelope falls into his hands. Aled looks at it, then at Jack -who’s now rummaging through his locker, but is still singing.

He opens the envelope warily, half expecting something to spring out at him, but all he finds is a piece of paper.

Come to the dance with me?
xo, Daniel.

Aled blushes furiously and presses the paper into his chest. Jack raises an eyebrow at him around his open locker door. He pulls out his phone, types a quick text of ‘Yes!’ to Daniel before getting the books he came here for.

Daniel, Alex and Andrew materialize down the corridor, and they barely have time to brace themselves before Aled and Jack dive on them. Andrew frowns dejectedly at the two couples and carries on walking.

He spots Hayley a little way down the corridor and goes over to her.

“You going to the dance tonight?” Andrew asks. She looks him up and down, sighs and shakes her head.

“No. No one thought to ask me. I have too much of a reputation, apparently.”

“No one asked me either. We should go together?”

Hayley looks at him for a second before shrugging.

“Sure, why not. Pick me up at seven.”

*

Aled has dragged Jack downtown to go shopping after class.

Jack’s currently on the brink of bashing his head into the wall as Aled picks up another pair of identical blue skinny jeans.

“These or these?” He asks, holding them both up. Jack looks between them and pulls a face.

“They’re different?”

Aled whacks him with a pair and nods.

“Yes, they’re different. And if you’re going to be irritating, then I’m not going to help you find your outfit.”

Jack sighs; he knows he’s going to need Aled’s help with this.

“Fine. Those.” Jack groans, gesturing at one of the pairs without really looking.

“Great. Now I need a shirt.” Aled replies, disappearing off into the racks a short distance away. Jack hangs his head and releases a disgruntled whine.

*

“What do you know, we scrub up well.” Aled says with a smirk as Jack rearranges his shirt for the fifteenth time, gazing into Aled’s bathroom mirror.

“You look fine.” Aled laughs, dragging Jack away from the mirror by his wrist. He looks heartbroken.

“Now come on, we’ll miss the taxi.”

They arrive at the venue -which turns out to be some bizarre outdoor clearing that’s been draped in flowers and trailing ivy- get their tags and immediately begin scouring the area for Alex and Daniel.

Hayley, Andrew, Victoria and Rian are lurking over near the refreshments, watching warily as Jack and Aled advance over.

Aled opens his mouth to ask if they’ve seen Daniel or Alex when a pair of arms wrap around his waist. He turns and Daniel kisses him lightly.

“Hey.” He says quietly. Daniel smiles.

“You look great.”

Aled smiles lopsidedly and kisses Daniel again. He catches sight of Jack and Alex in the background, and even Aled has to admit they’re pretty adorable.