for forever; tree bros

14. "well, this is fucked."

⚠️ trigger warning for self harm in this chapter. no descriptions of any character actually doing it, but potentially triggering imagery. please please please skip if you're sensitive to that. i'll do a summary of what you missed at the beginning of the next chapter. stay safe :-))

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evan remembered the next few weeks in flashes.

he'd spent that night, after pulling connor off of the garden floor and hauling him inside, dancing terribly with zoe, sharing drinks with jared, and giving connor what they both thought were subtle smiles. at some point, alana painted his nails hot pink, to match hers.

eventually all five of them crashed out on evan's bedroom floor. he awoke the next morning at eleven a.m. with a pounding headache, a dry throat and a familiar knot of anxiety in his stomach. after he'd found out that all the empty alcohol bottles were safely stored out of his mother's sight and that she had no idea of last night's adventures, he sleepily made breakfast for his friends, grinning like an idiot the whole time. one of the only things that he remembered from the night before was the warm happiness that had filled his body the entire night.

the next week of lessons dragged on more than evan could bear, but lunchtimes were without a doubt his favourite part of the day. on monday, evan and connor sat together as lunch, as usual. on tuesday, zoe joined them, saying that her jazz band friends were getting boring. on wednesday, alana sat down next to evan confidently, smiling at zoe and connor across the table. on thursday, evan made eye contact with jared across the cafeteria, who ducked his head quickly. evan quickly accepted that jared wouldn't sacrifice his slowly-growing popularity for the four of them; but, on friday, a shadow fell across the table and jared stood there, looking anxious. surprisingly, it was connor who grinned and offered jared the seat next to him.

the five would laugh and chatter loudly about teachers, tv, and each other. evan didn't speak too much, but spent his time watching his friends interact. zoe and jared both had lightning-quick, usually dirty, humour that bounced off each other easily. jared and connor shared a love for self-deprecating comments that had the others wincing through their laughter. alana was always the one to pick up a conversation when it fell flat or trailed off naturally, and her and jared bonded over their similar family situations (both had younger siblings and religious parents). evan found that he and alana both enjoyed nature documentaries and animals, and both weren't allowed a pet although it was one of their deepest desires, and discovered more about jared than he had in the past few years; he liked to sing and was really into harry potter.

they once spent an entire lunch time taking a quiz online to determine their hogwarts houses. as it happened, jared was in slytherin, alana was in ravenclaw, both murphy siblings got sorted into gryffindor, and evan was a hufflepuff (but only because he was made to choose between that and slytherin).

they also spent one of their lunches discussing sexualities. zoe told everyone she was bi, as did evan. connor said he was gay, shrugging and trying to seem as if he didn't care, but evan saw his hands shake as they rested on the table. alana simply pointed to the lesbian flag badge pinned to her jacket. jared laughed and made a comment about being the "token straight friend".

aside from this, evan and connor were texting every night. evan repeatedly made connor promise that he'd let him know if anything went wrong, but so far nothing had. mostly they shared song recommendations upon song recommendations, helped each other with their homework and occasionally sent the odd silly selfie. evan's heart fluttered every time connor's face popped up on his phone screen, frowning slightly to make himself look more intimidating and pouting with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

everything was going well, it seemed. until evan's phone started buzzing wildly at 2 a.m.

he sat up hurriedly in his bed, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and reaching blindly for his phone. the bright screen lit up the whole the room, and evan squinted as he read the texts that had come through.