above all (m×m) ✔

45) else, love.

"Hey, Brandon." Brandon turned around when he heard Eli's soft-spoken voice, and smiled at his friend. "I'm not trying to hit on you, I swear, I just want to.." Eli raked a hand through his light brown hair. "You know, compliment you?"

"Okay?" Brandon chuckled, his fingers clamping tighter around the neck of his beer bottle. He wasn't sure if he could ever get rid of the lingering awkwardness around Eli, even though it had been years since he had had feelings for him.

"That hair suits you, and you look so good." Eli said with a gentle smile on his lips. "I just never really —"

"Noticed it?" Brandon finished for him with a laugh, easing his grip from the beer bottle. Somehow those words didn't make his head spin with uncertainties. He already knew that he wasn't Eli's type, but that didn't mean there was anything wrong with him. It just meant they weren't a good match. "Believe me, I know."

"Well, yeah, sorry." Eli admitted, grinning sheepishly. "I can be a real prick sometimes. And after everything your ex put you through.. I wish we could have done more for you."

"You're not a prick, and it's fine, I'm doing better now." Brandon reassured Eli. It wasn't the easiest topic to talk about, and there was a part of Brandon that just wanted to flee from the crowd, but he was working around the fear. Brandon glanced towards the couches where Benjamin and Steven and the rest of their found family were already waiting for them. "It all turned out just fine, didn't it?"

"Couldn't have been better." Eli agreed, his hazel eyes turning affectionate when he met Benjamin's gaze across the rooftop. "But seriously, I think none of us was doing well when we first met each other. All that drinking and partying and hitting on everything that moves with two legs."

Brandon blinked, growing quiet. It was true that once upon a time, they had dragged themselves into a bar almost every night, and that no one drank themselves funny night after night if they were doing well. No one went to such great lengths to avoid being alone, if there were no demons waiting for them in the quiet of their home. They might have laughed it off and pretended that it was always only a good time, even if it clearly wasn't.

It occurred to Brandon that none of them had a picture perfect family. Some of them had a dead parent or parents, some were abandoned by them, some had parents way too controlling. It wasn't something they talked about, but the intensity of avoiding talking about it alone was telling. It was a curious realization, but it didn't actually change anything. Other than that they all had needed to figure some shit out and that they all needed this found family of theirs.

"Then I think we're all doing better now." Brandon pointed out, smiling. They weren't drinking, fucking around or partying with something that could only be called desperation every goddamn night anymore. Instead, they went to therapy, had a few drinks together here and there, and had settled down, grown up. 

"Yup." Eli grinned and lifted his Pepsi bottle to clink it with Brandon's beer. Then he squeezed Brandon into a half-hug, being too short to be comfortably able to walk with his arm around Brandon's shoulders, and started guiding him back to the others. Before they made it to the couches, Eli whispered to Brandon: "You and Steven look good together, I haven't seen him this happy before. Well, okay, he's Steven, so he's always happy, but you know what I mean."

"You really think so?" Brandon asked.

"Didn't your parents ever tell you that it's not polite to whisper in a group?" Steven joined the conversation, a playful glint in his blue eyes. Brandon didn't know what he would have done if Steven had acted jealous over his and Eli's conversation, so he was glad to find that Steven trusted them both enough not to make any unnecessary conclusions. Steven prompted: "Let us all hear what Eli thinks."