Misconceptions

He doesn’t have his coat with him this time, and is dripping wet by the time he steps into the entrance hall but he doesn’t care. He’s met by a fretful maid who advises him that:

“Master Clive and Mistress Lily is being on the third floor, and Master Cody is being in his angry room.”

Apprehensive, Brandon nods and walks away, ignoring the elf’s tortured protests that, “If I was being Mr Brandon Sir, I would not go into that room!”

Brandon finds that, while he is not blaming maid, he is having no choice but to go into that room.

Heart racing at a ridiculous rate, he locates the right corridor on the third attempt and tries the door. It’s unlocked and he pushes it open slowly; he thinks he knows what he’s going to see here—he only hopes that none of the vases have his face on them.

The vast room smells of sweat and the build-up of tension and something dangerous, feral. His eyes fall immediately on Cody in the center of the room, and something inside him falls apart. Tension straightens every line of his body, and the hand at his side is curled into a tight fist, while his wand arm extends, holds and flicks violently, over and over again, sending glass, crystal and china shattering into a thousand sparkling pieces against the wall and all over the floor.

Brandon can’t be sure how long he’s been here, but his pale grey sweater is sticking to his lower back with perspiration and his throwing arm is a little shaky as he lifts a particularly heavy crystal vase. The certain knowledge that—unlike the last time he was here—he’s the one responsible for Cody’s distress is painful.

“I know you didn’t sleep with Zack,” Brandon says at last, taking a couple of steps closer.

Startled, Cody whips around and stares at him, grey eyes wild and hair flopping over his forehead. His lip curls in a way that Brandon hasn’t seen in a long time, and that immediately takes him back almost ten years.

“I did,” he insists. “I bloody did.” He turns away and raises another vase; this time when he goes to cast it against the wall, he throws his whole body behind the action, weight pitched forward on one foot, arm extended fully. Brandon watches the fluid lines and smooth angles shifting under his clothes and can’t help but admire his grace, however angry he is.

The vase shatters with a huge crack, and Brandon is shaken out of his momentary daze. “I know you didn’t, Cody. Zack told me.”

Cody stills, straightening up and letting his arms fall to his sides, but he doesn’t turn around. “When?”

“Not that long ago. He followed me when I left here... we had an interesting conversation,” Brandon rasps, swallowing against his dry throat. The tension radiating from Cody’s body makes it difficult to breathe, and they aren’t even looking at each other. “Why the fuck did you say that to me? Why would you do that? I misunderstood something, and you let me believe it? Why?”

Cody turns now, eyes flashing and fist gripped tight. “Because I was fucking mad at you, that’s why.”

The fury in his voice is catching, and Brandon scowls, too. “You lied about Zack to punish me?”

“Now who’s being dramatic? I was all ready to put you right, you know—I know what Zack’s like, he just opens his mouth, words come out, and he worries about them later, if at all.” Cody snorts suddenly and smashes another vase into a scatter of blue porcelain. “Remind you of anyone?”

“Is this when you tell me how alike we are again?” Brandon snaps, heat curling his hands into fists.

“No, this is where I tell you that what really fucking burned was how easily you believed that I’d just not bother to tell you something like that. That you knew it. You always knew it,” Cody spits, breathless after obliterating three glass vases in rapid succession. “And while it’s true that my past is just that—mine—the fact that you think I’d keep something like that from you... am I supposed to not care that you don’t trust me?”

Brandon stands very still and a good ten feet behind him, but the little catch in Cody’s voice rips at him.

“I do trust you.”

“No, you don’t! You didn’t trust me about not going to see her and you didn’t trust me not to sleep with Zack,” Cody argues, tone rough and posture tight. Swish. Flick. Crunch.

Brandon stares at the back of the disheveled blond head until his eyes are sore, and he rubs them, trying to push away those dark feelings of hopelessness that crowd in around him even at the mention of that day. His heart is still leaping into his throat and the hot curl of ire remains somewhere low down, but he thinks he knows he’s wrong, and Cody’s wrong too, but god, all of that stuff outside of this room is still there and he needs Cody, and he needs to fix this. Somehow.

“I do trust you, Cody. But when you stop communicating with me completely, my mind starts playing games with me... and then I start doing stupid stuff,” Brandon offers, scrubbing at his wet hair and feeling hopelessly inarticulate. “Cody, I... you help me not to do the stupid stuff! I need—”

“That’s what you need me for?” Cody interrupts, and looses a hollow bark of laughter that echoes in the cavernous room. “Oh, well. That’s good to know. As long as I’m useful, and I’m around to stop you going around making messes everywhere and being you, then that’s OK for me.” He shakes his head and flings his arm so violently to scatter the floor with crystal that Brandon thinks it must have hurt him.

“Shut up, Cody. That’s not what I meant. You always twist my words.”

“Consider it an additional service. You know, for once I’ve finished sorting out your mistakes for the day.”

Brandon takes an ill-advised step closer; he needs so much to close this distance, and to close it properly. Not just to smooth over the surface and hold everything together for a little while longer, but to throw everything open and make it stick.

“Cody.”

“What?” Another heavy glass vase is lifted into the air and hovers there as Cody seems to wait.

“That’s not... I do need you for that. But mostly I need you because...”

Cody’s arm trembles and the fingers at his side clench tighter. Brandon takes another step closer, weighing his expectation, tasting it, and knowing.

“Because what?” Cody demands roughly, still not turning around. “You know, I’ve got stuff to do, and—”

“Because I love you, you idiot!” Brandon interrupts, a little too loudly.