Boy/Boy Problems

Avoidance Tactics

Luke was standing at the door and Teddy knew it. He couldn't see it because he'd kept his eyes firmly shut and his body turned away from the door since he heard the soft knock of Luke announcing his presence. Teddy couldn't see him, but Teddy could feel him. It was like a vein ran through his body directly from Luke's heart. He could hear the bum bum bum of it from the other side of the room. Teddy couldn't see him but he still knew Luke was leaning casually against the doorframe wearing a pair of sweats with no top looking like he just walked off the set of everyone's favour romantic comedy and into Teddy's nightmare.

Teddy couldn't see him, but he knew Luke was there waiting for Teddy to stop pretending he was sleeping and face whatever mess he'd made the night before. The problem was Teddy couldn't remember making a mess, not anymore of a mess than he'd been making for himself since Luke tweeted the world his sexuality. Or even before that. As far as Teddy could tell he was the same level of mess he'd been since he met Luke.

The moment he realised he was in the spare bedroom Teddy had double, tripled checked his social media for any mistakes. He remembered making a decision about the politics of their coming out but he hadn't actually done anything about that yet, he had a very specific plan for that and it didn't involve drunk antics. Still he checked for it anyway. Then he googled himself to see if there was something, anything, he'd said in interviews that might have come across the wrong way but there was nothing. There was barely a comment on his continued correction of the media's miss labelling of Luke's bisexuality, although he noticed a few fans had picked up on that from videos and most of them seemed to share his outrage, which was nice. Teddy even went as far as to text Alice - risking exposure and ridicule - to ask if she'd heard anything through her secret fandom contacts. She hadn't replied but he took that as a good sign because if something had happened she would have been glued to her phone.

Rather than feeling relief, the fact that he couldn't locate the source of whatever drama he'd unleashed made Teddy more nervous. He racked his brain for something he could have said but the worst thing that came to him was a conversation about a getting a kitten, which wasn't ideal but was hardly out of the ordinary, Teddy had been talking about getting a kitten since Luke had moved out. He'd definitely talked to Luke about getting a kitten before, he had a Whatsapp message chain to prove they'd had similar conversations before. It couldn't be the kitten that caused his relocation to the spare bedroom. It didn't make sense. But if it wasn't the kitten that meant it wasn't something that happened at the premier or the afterparty, which meant that his exile hadn't been caused by a drunken mistake and that was terrifying.

Eventually the pressure of Luke silently waiting at the door grew too much and Teddy was forced to roll himself of the duvet cocoon of denial he'd created to face the day. He groaned, stretched and tried to make it look like he was surprised by Luke's appearance.

"Coffee?" asked Luke holding out a cup that had not doubt gone from warm to cool while he waited for Teddy to accept his fate. Still Teddy took the cold coffee like it was fresh complete with noises of delight when he had a sip of it, like it wasn't making him want to vomit.

"Thanks for this," said Teddy forcing himself to take another sip of the coffee that was just warm enough to be disgusting.

Luke perched awkwardly on the end of the spare bed, his discomfort telegraphing that something was very wrong between them. The kind of easy physical relationship Teddy and Luke usually had made it all the more obvious when either one of them was suddenly uncomfortable around the other. It was wrong in too many ways.

"You look a bit rough," said Luke, trying for friendly ribbing but coming across a little cruel considering the circumstances. Luke seemed get this and he almost cringed at his own comment.