Price Check On Monogamy

"Caleb, I really don't want to--"

"Tandem, suck it up and go to your rehearsals, you're fucking graduating, you hear me?"

Tandem stared at Caleb blandly, still not moving to get out of the car. They were in the school auditorium where the rehearsals were happening-- and they'd been there for the past half hour. Caleb had had enough of Tandem trying to weasel his way out of having to go to the rehearsals; as much as it sucked being the hard ass best friend, sometimes it was exactly what needed to happen.

Tandem knew that. And he appreciated it. And he really did feel honoured to have a best friend that was literally skipping school right now to make sure that he walked during the graduation.

But he still didn't want to get out of the car.

"What does one rehearsal matter?" Tandem said-- again.

"For the last time, man, this isn't the first rehearsal, it's the fifth one, you just missed all the other ones!" Caleb snapped. Tandem sighed; by some miracle, the school was still letting him walk as long as he knew what the hell he was doing and, since this was the last rehearsal before graduation, he'd have to go in eventually.

Not that he was going to do that without a fight.

"But--"

"Tandem, shut the fuck up!" Tandem cut himself off abruptly; it was the first time that Caleb had yelled at him since all this bullshit had started. Tandem wouldn't even directly look at his friend; he just glanced at him, and saw that, apparently, Caleb had been thinking the same thing. Gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles a bone-white, Caleb was staring straight ahead.

That's one thing they don't have in common, Tandem thought mildly. Caleb can never look anyone in the eye when he's really frustrated, not even Heather.

Tandem, who'd gone back to staring straight ahead, could hear his best friend take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Look," Caleb said, this time much more calmly. "I know it's hard. I know it's been hard. But you need to suck it the fuck up and go out there. Do you really think that not walking in your graduation is gonna help anything? Do you really think she'd want you to not walk?"

That's... Tandem almost groaned out loud. He'd told Caleb that he wanted to be a different person for Tiger-- he'd told him that twice, in fact. Once at the start of all this-- when he'd realized he'd had to tell Caleb something to even kind of get a chance-- and once when he'd first told Caleb what'd happened-- when he'd realized that, somewhere along the line, he'd fallen in love with a girl that hated him. When he realized that being a better person, for her, being a person worth loving, for her, would be worth it.

Hiding in a car, avoiding the world-- that was the person he was. Even though it was the person no one ever saw in him, that was apart of the person he really was.

Everyone's gotta grow up sometime.

Taking a deep breath, Tandem unlocked the door slowly and, with every bit of energy left in himself, he opened the door. Before he got out, though, he turned and looked Caleb directly in the eye-- Caleb who had, apparently, been watching him open the door. "Thanks, Caleb. For everything."

Caleb clapped a hand on Tandem's shoulder and smirked. "I've got your back, man. Now hurry the fuck up."

Tandem smiled wearily and pulled himself out of the car. Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, he focused all his energy on just putting one foot in front of the other and moving toward the auditorium.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

The way he saw it, if he could successfully get the rhythm into his head, he could get through the entire rehearsal without dropping dead from fatigue.

Step. Step. Almost there. Step. Shade. Step. Door. Step. Handle. Pull.

"Tandem!"

Tandem's head jerked up roughly. He felt paralyzed. He was almost positive that he'd heard someone call his name, but, then again, he'd gotten about two hours of sleep in the last three days. Imagining things really wasn't all that far fetched-- especially when he'd been imagining that exact voice.

But that exact voice really couldn't have called his name, and he was too terrified to turn around and see that it wasn't real. Again. To turn around and realize that he'd imagined everything that had happened so far, and he was actually still in his room at home, probably certifiably insane.

"Tandem!"

That's not your imagination, you idiot, turn around!

And that was his common sense, screaming at him to stop feeling sorry for himself and turn his ass around because, as crazy as he'd been going, that voice was too... real to walk away from. Tandem, hand still clenched tight on the doorknob, forced himself to turn around--

-- and was knocked through the doorway when someone came flying into him, arms wrapped around his neck and pulling him down so that he opened his eyes directly into the most beautiful, brilliant shade of green, or any colour, really, that he'd ever seen.

"Tiger--"

"I love you," Tiger cut him off before he could get another word out. Her eyes dead set on him, with the most intense look he'd ever seen, Tiger whispered again, "I love you, Tandem Blake. I absolutely love everything about you, and I know I'm not good enough, and I know I'm crazy, and I know that I've been a huge bitch, but more than anything else, I know that I love you enough to fix it all and try and make this strange, random, ridiculous, inconvenient love work, if you'll let me." The words rushed out so fast and Tandem could barely catch them all-- but he did. Especially when she stopped again and, taking a deep breath that he could almost feel her taking, said even more softly, "I love you, Tandem."

Tandem opened his mouth but thought better of it as he realized that the arms around his neck were shaking-- Tiger, his brave, fierce Tiger, was shaking. She was afraid, too.

She was afraid, too.

Tandem had never been good with words-- and, in his opinion, he'd said all there was to say in that letter. It had taken him hours just to write out that letter, hours to edit it, hours to make sure it said everything that he wanted to say-- and he'd still missed some thing. Words just weren't his things-- but body language was. Crushing his lips against hers, Tandem poured everything he was thinking, everything he'd been thinking, into a kiss that made everything he'd been through suddenly worth it...

... especially when he registered the fact that Tiger, the girl who'd managed to sneak in and steal his heart straight out of him without him even realizing it, was kissing him back just as hard.