Don't Tell My Brother

Chapter 45 - Boyfriends

"So..." Lucas began as they walked down the stairs.

It had been a very...eventful afternoon (some events he'd probably be recalling late that night, and many nights afterward), but one thing in particular was sticking with him. Damien had called him his boyfriend. Which, admittedly, had made him feel a surprising spark of happiness, but he didn't want to assume anything. Seeing how he'd acted around Cameron, it was possible that he'd just said it as a spur of the moment comment, something to get Cameron to back down. Damien did tend to make rash decisions. Decisions like outing himself to Cameron in the first place. He'd have to ask about that too.

"So?" Damien asked, turning to Lucas. "Oh no. You've got that look on your face."

"What look?" Lucas immediately tried to dispel any sort of look from his face. "I don't have a look."

"Yeah, you do. It's that 'I'm probably overthinking something' face. You sort of frown, and you keep messing with your glasses." Lucas quickly dropped his hand from where it'd been pushing his glasses up his nose, and Damien gave him a smug little grin. "So, what is it? What's going on in that genius head of yours, hm?"

"You told Cameron I was your boyfriend." Lucas said, careful not to sound too excited, just in case it'd been a joke.

"Ah." Damien paused at the foot of the stairs, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. "Yeah. I was trying to get Cameron to fuck off, I know we haven't discussed any of that and all. If you don't want that, it's totally cool. You're so busy with school, and you did sort of say you wouldn't date until college, or—"

"You said you wouldn't date anyone." Lucas cut in. "Especially not me. I'm pretty sure your exact words were 'I could have anyone I wanted, and I definitely wouldn't want you'." Lucas puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hips in what he was pretty confident was an excellent Damien impression.

"I don't look like that." Damien pouted. Lucas mirrored him, pouting right back, and Damien quickly stopped. "Or that. And in my defence, you'd just brutally rejected me."

"I didn't reject you. I don't remember that."

"You did." Damien said, but he was laughing.

They continued to walk down the street towards Lucas' bus stop, the same route they'd taken last time. Only this time they were on very different terms. Even with extra time for 'getting soap', the job had only taken two hours or so, and the afternoon sun was just barely starting to sink. The days were getting colder, Lucas had noticed, the sun setting earlier and earlier, but this afternoon was one of the last warm ones.

"We'd had that thing at the party, right? Where I was maybe a little bit drunk and I sort of made a move on you—"

"I knew you'd tried to kiss me." Lucas said, triumphant.

It felt like so long ago, that dark night in the bedroom at the party, where he'd found Damien so unbearable he'd could've slapped him. Now he caught himself watching Damien when the other wasn't looking, admiring the way the sunlight caught his eyes and burnt them gold. If that Lucas could see them now, he'd probably lose his mind.

"Yeah, yeah, you're very clever." Damien said, trying "Anyway, I try to kiss you, Mallory interrupts and you fucking run for it, which was...not that surprising, actually. And then the next day, you show up with this speech about how you'd rather die then go anywhere near me, and I'm full of horrible STDs and you only went near me because you'd drunk some sort of poison—"

Lucas pressed his lips together, trying very, very hard to supress a laugh. "I think you're exaggerating a little. Just a little."

"No way. This is one hundred percent true, tesoro. And then you said I was the last person on Earth you'd date, and that you'd rather die then go near me, and that I made you so sick that you had to try not to hurl every time you saw me, and—"