holiday spirit ✓

☃️ 042!

"BRYCE, YOU ALRIGHT?"

He nods faintly as Luke moves in from the doorway, before wrapping his arms around the smaller boy's shoulders.

It's abnormally perfectly silent in the bus for once - maybe everyone else realised something was off, and decided to keep it down while Luke tried to fix it.

"I'm sorry, Luke--"

"No." Luke says immediately, pulling back to stare Bryce straight in the eyes. "I'm not going to let you apologise for this. Not at all."

He smiles a little, before turning to look over his shoulder at the tiny machine in the corner. "Will you get angry if I play my own song?"

Luke nods definitively, squeezing Bryce's shoulders lightly. It's odd in that this is the closest Luke has ever been to him, and yet he doesn't feel any faint trace of anything romantic. "Of course you can, why would I get angry?"

With a small laugh, Bryce tilts his head back to stare at the cabinet. "Alexa, play TANTRUM by Plum Island."

The bass line kicks in almost as furiously as Calum's tend to, and Bryce starts to headbang as soon as his own vocals begin to play loudly in the room.

Luke can't recall if he's ever properly listened to TANTRUM fully, simply just because of the subject: even listening to his own songs (see Why Won't You Love Me and Castaway) tends to leave the metaphorical wounds torn open again.

I'll shave my blue hair, burn the rest of two dares!

Despite how Luke is slowly being reminded of how awful 2016 and 2017 is, he can't help but smile softly at Bryce violently lip-synching along to the song. He can tell he fell for this boy for a reason, and this is exactly the kind of thing that couldn't be better.

And then all the insecurities that remind him he isn't good enough, he never will be, he's ruined everything for everyone, and this isn't going to go any better than last year.

Luke forces the fake smile back onto his face, hoping that his years of practice at this exact thing pay off.