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1.
“Hey Annie, do you remember when you told us about your high school boyfriend? You know, the one with the, uh, walk-in closet?”
They’re curled up on the run-down carpet of the darkened study room, the two of them, bleary-eyed (Annie) and covered in dried-up glue (Troy). On the table above them, freshly-finished banners lie waiting for tomorrow’s dance, bright and hopeful.
“Well, I don’t remember telling you that,” Annie mutters around a mouthful of cheap pizza, “but sure. What about him?”
Troy stares at the cooling slice of margherita in his hand. “Were you guys still cool afterwards? Like, did you still respect him? When he...”
“Cried?” she suggests euphemistically, and Troy takes some comfort in the fact that he’s not the only one who can’t seem to say it.
“I guess.”
“Of course I did,” she replies, serious this time. “I wouldn’t think less of anyone for… crying. I just regret that neither of us understood how he really felt. I would never have gone through with it if I’d known how uncomfortable he was.”
Troy hums, peels a bit of glue from his finger. It comes off like a second skin, transparent and painless. “Did you still want to be his friend after?”
“Of course!” Her voice pitches up in the usual self-righteous indignation, so he fixes her with a stern stare to remind her that lying is against the sacred rules of deep late-night conversations between buddies - which they are now, he hopes.
“Okay, fine,” she admits, rolling her eyes. “I may have taken it a little personally at first. I mean, you have relations with a guy, only to make him realize that he’s… well. But,” she continues thoughtfully, “he was my friend. Of course that didn’t change just because of that.”
“What if –”
Troy closes his eyes. If he keeps very still and lets the words tumble out without looking, they won’t really be his. This can all be like a dream, like a movie - the kind his parents would click away from when it came on, the kind that was never about him and doesn’t have to be if he just doesn’t let it.
“What if he were some popular guy – maybe, like, a quarterback – and he had a really pretty girlfriend, and he really thought he was into her, but he cried a little bit in the bathroom afterwards too because it should’ve been awesome but he just felt weird and kinda lonely the whole time?” He’s rambling, but Annie just listens quietly. He can’t seem to stop, in any case. “And he thought it’d be different once he got to college, but it’s been almost a year now and he’s still not – he’s…”
“What about him?” Annie says softly.
“Would you still be friends with a guy like that?”
She hooks her arm through his, rests her head on his shoulder. “I would be best friends with a guy like that.”
(The library heating must be off during the night, Annie tells herself, because he’s trembling a little.)
“You’re really cool, Annie.”
She smiles, only a little wistfully, and takes another bite of pizza.
2.
“Shirley, do you really think it’s a sin?”
The question isn’t entirely unexpected. She’d felt the sting of her words the moment they left her mouth, the way she so often does when it’s already too late; and she’d seen the way he’d laughed a little too loudly and quietly let go of his best friend’s hand.
Unnatural.
Really, she should just have let it be. If the Dean insists on spending perfectly good tuition money on an el-gee-bee-tee awareness week when he knows damn well that there’s still an unfixed sinkhole in the women’s bathroom and that Greendale’s resident raccoon catchers are still on strike for lack of pay - well, then that’s none of her business, is it? But she’d blurted out her old prejudice without thinking, and then dug her heels in because swallowing her words would’ve meant swallowing her pride and Lord knows she doesn’t get enough respect around here as it is –
Still, though.
Kind people are always kind. She feels sheepish at the memory of those words now, having forgotten them today, having forgotten them all those other times she had flung judgement around with no regard for who might be listening, for who might get hurt.
(Abed says they’re friends, Jeff had told her once, and that’s all he’d tell me about it. She’d thought it best not to ask why Jeff had been talking to Abed about such things in the first place. Birds of a feather, maybe – but again, none of her business.)
Britta had laid into her, of course. By the time Shirley had sweet-talked her way back into everyone’s good graces and the group finally piled out of the library, deep-blue twilight had settled over the campus. Hurrying through the lonely parking lot, she’d almost missed the figure in baggy jeans over by the bike racks – faraway eyes and headphones blaring so loudly it couldn’t possibly be pleasant on the ears, even for his reckless tastes.
It gets dark so early now, her heart whispers, and Pierce’s mansion is so far by bike.
So now Troy’s got his grimy soles up against the glove box of her Ford Explorer, and he’s asking quiet questions she doesn’t know the answers to because she’s never allowed herself to doubt before.
“The Scripture says it is, sweetie.”
“Yeah, I know,” he smiles unconvincingly, staring at the toes of his battered red sneakers. “D’you think God really means that, though? Not that I would doubt Him,” he adds hastily. “It’s just… There’s people who say God is all love, and there’s people who say you can’t pick and choose which Bible verses to follow, and I don’t know what to believe sometimes, you know? There’s probably tons of… those people in the world, like, at least a thousand or something, and if God made them, they can’t all be bad, right? Do you think you can be gay and still be a good person? D’you think He could still love –”
“I don’t know,” she lies, “I don’t know, Troy, I don’t know –”
“Well, what would you do if it were one of your own kids?”
The car is quiet. The road stretches out before them.
She thinks of her own boys, the feeling of their small arms looped around her neck, the way they call her mama, the way they kiss her goodnight every night. She knows that later they’ll love someone else, someone who isn’t her; and she thinks the way they love could never be wrong, no matter who it’s for. She thinks about how they look at her like she hung the moon and the stars, and then she pictures them grown up and sitting on her couch the way Troy is sitting next to her right now – frowning and stone-faced, because he’ll crumble otherwise.
Secrets never stay small, do they? Shame grows and infects every part of you like a disease, until one day you look up and realize it’s nestled itself in every corner of your being, even the good and cozy ones.
Her heart hurts when she imagines her boys feeling the way this one does now – afraid she wouldn’t accept them – and then it hurts even more, because from the little she’s seen of Troy’s family, she thinks he may not have a mama who’d tell him she’s proud of him no matter what, either.
She pulls over.
“Don’t,” he bites out as she moves to touch him, swatting her fingers away instinctively. “Just tell me first. Tell me what you’d say. Please.”
It’s not rejection, she knows; it’s self-preservation. “Okay,” she begins, clasping her hands in front of her. “I think I’d be… surprised. But…”
Outside, a nightingale sings. The mellow night breeze rustles through the trees. Troy sniffs. A tiny spider makes its languid way down her window.
In that moment, something changes for Shirley Bennett.
“I would love him just the same,” she decides, once and for all, “and I think the Lord would, too.”
“You really think so?”
Her gaze burns into his as she nods. “I would tell him he’s lovable, and pure, and as beloved by God as any bird, or mighty king, or tiny leaf of grass. I would tell him he is so, so wonderfully made. And I would hope he’d never forget that.”
His face crumples, and his cheeks are growing wet.
"Troy,” she says gently. “Are you…”
“I don't know," he cries. “I don't know.”
When she pulls him into her arms this time, he doesn’t resist, falls into it with shaking shoulders.
“Oh, sweetie,” she sighs, and he lets her.
3.
“Britta, can we talk?”
She smiles softly, sadly, as she lowers her menu. “I think we should.”
4.
“Jeff, you’ve been out with guys, right?”
Jeff’s pen hovers above the paper for a second, the only sign of well-concealed surprise, before he goes back to copying notes from his battered biology textbook. Or trying to, anyway – Troy’s restless footsteps echoing through the empty study room make it pretty much impossible to take anything in.
“Sure,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can manage. “Who told you – oh, never mind, I don’t even know why I’m still asking.”
“So what I’m wondering is – are there, like, rules? You know, who asks who, and how do you know who has to pay the check? Do you use rock-paper-scissors, or – oh shit, do you have to duel it out?”
“Okay – no one’s fighting anyone, Troy. It’s a date. And it’s not very different from asking a woman out, you know.”
“Really?” Troy laments. “I mean, girls want all sorts of things I wouldn’t really see myself doing for A– for a guy. Like, they want heart-shaped chocolates, and to borrow your jacket, and for you to pick them up before a dance even though you told them you don’t have a car yet, so you make Chess Club Dave loan his to you even though you don’t have a license and then you crash it a little bit and it's a whole thing, so you tell everyone the dude has head lice –”
“Yeah, that’s what girls want,” Jeff interrupts. “Well, maybe not the blackmailing nerds thing - but the point is, you’re a man now, Troy.”
(Pride lifts Troy up onto his tiptoes. He may be twenty-three now, but the words still make his heart glow.)
“Women are fine with being asked out like adults,” Jeff continues, “and so are men. Of course you should try to find the right approach for that specific person, but gender doesn’t really factor into it that much, you know?” His right hand is beginning to gesture animatedly, though Troy doesn’t think Jeff himself notices.
“Have you dated a lot of guys?” Troy blurts out. It’s just to distract Jeff from launching into a full-blown speech, he tells himself; it’s not like he’d actually be curious to know what’s normal, what’s possible, what life could be like –
“Not as many as I’ve dated women,” Jeff admits, turning a page. “The dating pool is a little smaller. But,” he adds, like it’s somehow important to him that Troy knows this, “there’s plenty of good people out there.”
The words don’t worry hang in the air, unspoken, but heartening nonetheless.
“Thanks, Jeff,” Troy says awkwardly, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“No problem,” Jeff drawls, carefully keeping his eyes on the paper. “By the way, did you just come out to me? You know, just so I know whether there should be hugging involved.”
“No!” Troy squeaks, then immediately scrapes his throat. “I didn’t. I mean…”
“Okay,” Jeff hums, when Troy’s half-hearted explanation trails off into silence. “Would you like a random and completely coincidental hug that has nothing to do with the conversation we just had, then?”
“Yeah,” Troy admits after a beat, and for the first time, Jeff looks up from his notebook.
Troy tries not to feel small as he’s wrapped up (and geez, the dude is like a human furnace), and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or how to reply without tearing up when Jeff mumbles you’ll be okay somewhere above his head, so –
“You’re, like, a really warm person,” he says instead, muffled against Jeff’s shoulder.
“No, I’m not,” Jeff bristles, almost crushing Troy as he hugs him even tighter. “Shut up.”
Jeff’s a pretty weird guy, Troy decides, but he’s glad to have him as a friend, anyway.
+1.
“Abed, can I tell you something?”
“Sure, buddy,” Abed says. His voice is low and gentle, as if he’s talking to a cat – the same voice, Troy thinks, he himself uses on Abed when his spidey senses are taking up too much space in his brain. “Do you wanna stay in your corner?”
Troy’s sneakers are currently the only part of him peeking out from his Thinking Corner. Abed must’ve seen them when he poked his head in some hours earlier, in search of Troy, but he hadn’t even questioned why Troy is holed up on the floor of what is now essentially Abed’s bedroom.
Troy nods, scooting over as much as possible in the tiny crevice between the desk and the foot of the bunk bed, and pats the floor. Abed squeezes himself into the space beside him, the two of them making a tight fit of limbs and elbows.
“I made musakhan,” Abed offers, clearly trying to entice Troy back into the world of the living with promises of delicious dinners. It’s a good attempt: Abed barely ever cooks, what with the labyrinth of different steps and his sensitive dietary preferences – but when he does, it’s rich and comforting, made with love and the kind of casual skill that comes with a childhood in a restaurant.
The blanket ceiling stretches itself above the two of them, its colorful sheets casting the whole fort in a warm light. Abed’s hoodie is scratchy-soft against Troy’s bare elbow, worn out and softened by many years of comfortable use, and Troy wishes, more than anything, that he could bury his face in that comforting blue and stay there forever, guarded against all harm by the smell of Abed’s vanilla laundry softener.
Over and over he counts backwards in his head – when I reach one I’ll fess up – but the end of his countdown never brings the burst of courage he’s hoping for. The words stay stuck in his throat, hot and unmoving, and all the while the air grows ever thicker with shame. The cowboys on the ceiling stare down at him, unmoving – taunting Troy with all he’s leaving behind and all he’s failing to be, and waiting to mount up and leave once he inevitably contaminates the magic.
“Should I pretend to be you?” Abed murmurs after a while, but Troy shakes his head. Abed hums quietly, his brow knitting together, and his warm fingers lace themselves with Troy’s. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
A harsh noise escapes from Troy’s throat – it’s not a sob, it’s not – and Abed’s hand tightens on his, and –
Five, four, three, tw–
“I think I’m gay.”
The words float into the air and dissolve there, forever mingled with the earth’s atmosphere. He wants Abed to laugh, to say cut, let’s take it from the top and flip back to page one. He wants him to have known all along, wants for this to be so damn meaningless he never had to say it at all. He wants –
He wants a lot of things he can’t have.
“Oh,” Abed breathes. He barely seems surprised, but he does hold Troy’s hand a little tighter. “Cool.”
Troy’s responding sigh comes out shakier than he’d like to admit. “Yeah?”
“Of course. I know this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you you’re my best friend and I’ll always love and accept you, but I have a sneaking suspicion you already know that, seeing as we show each other that exact sentiment every other week or so. Besides, you know it’d be super hypocritical if I wasn’t cool with it,” Abed shrugs. Troy has to admit it would be a little weird for a bi guy to be homophobic, but you never know.
“Plus,” Abed perks up, nudging Troy’s elbow with his in encouragement, “lots of great characters are gay, anyway.”
“Really?” Troy can’t come up with any gay characters, now that he thinks about it.
(Okay, maybe it’s not that he never thought about it. It’s just that he never felt like he was allowed to think of them that way.)
“Or should be, anyway,” Abed admits. “Luke Skywalker, Cameron Frye… Also, Geordi La Forge, for sure.”
“You’re just making this up to make me feel better,” Troy laughs through his tears, but Abed won’t be deterred.
“Xena, too. James Bond… probably bisexual,” he decides sagely.
“I do value James Bond’s opinion,” Troy sniffles, and Abed smiles, his thumb brushing over Troy’s knuckles. His eyes are impossibly dark and gentle, and it breaks Troy’s heart a little bit, knowing he might be about to shatter it all irreparably.
“There’s something else,” he begins. Abed tilts his head.
“So I already kind of told the rest of the group that I’m, uh, gay. Well, I didn’t tell them, really, but… anyway. And the reason is –”
“Oh,” Abed says carefully. His eyes have gone blank, like a curtain has slid over his expression, and his grip on Troy’s hand loosens, though he doesn’t quite let go. “Troy, I’m sorry if I ever did anything to make you feel like you couldn’t tell me. I swear I didn’t mean to –”
“No, listen – that’s not what I’m trying to tell you, though. I came out to you last because we’re so close, okay? Of course I could tell Annie or Shirley first. I don’t spend all my time with them. I don’t fall asleep against them. I don’t hold hands with them.”
“I thought you liked those things,” Abed says quietly.
“I do, honest.” Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. “I love them, and I didn’t wanna lose them, so I figured as long as one of us was straight, stuff couldn’t get messy and we could keep doing this forever, you know? Look, I just didn’t want to be creepy, or make you think that I’m, like, in love with you or something...”
The words make him cringe the moment they’re out – a tone of disgusted ridicule to them, a mocking echo from his uncomfortable high school days. From the corner of his eye, he sees Abed flinch too.
“Of course not. That would be crazy,” Abed says curtly, struggling to get up from their tight space. “Can you let me pass? The chicken’s getting cold –”
“Because I am,” Troy blurts out.
Abed freezes.
“I am,” Troy repeats, “in love, I mean,” and then he’s almost laughing out loud as he gently pulls Abed back down to where he was sitting. “You can walk away afterwards, okay? Just let me tell you, just this once.”
Abed still isn’t looking at Troy, but he nods, and his skin is so warm under Troy’s hand.
“I know this is supposed to be some nasty secret,” Troy begins, “but it doesn’t feel that way. I love you, and it’s this beautiful thing. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling really bad about myself, and to be honest, I still kind of do, but the way I feel about you isn’t part of that. It feels like… like sunshine. Like waking up on a Sunday morning with no homework and Annie’s made pancakes. Like scoring the winning touchdown, except I don’t have to go anywhere or be anyone afterwards, I can just stay in with you. And…” His voice falters. “I know you probably don’t feel the same way, but I promise I won’t be weird about it, okay? You’ll still be my very best friend. Always. Even if I wasn’t, like, massively in love with you,” – he almost laughs at himself, at the enormity of it – “I’d still think you’re the coolest person in the world. I’m not expecting anything, and I’m not going anywhere. You never have to worry about that, okay? So… there. Confession over, I guess. I’m sorry.”
Abed doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are so wide as he stares at Troy – dark, open, and shining just a little. Troy hopes that’s a good thing.
The seconds tick on, and an unreadable mixture of expressions continues to flicker over Abed’s face until, god, Troy can’t take it anymore. “Are you mad at me?”
Abed just raises two fingers to his throat, their secret hand sign for I can’t speak right now.
“Okay, fair. Uh, can you nod if we’re cool, though?” Troy presses, bracing himself for the possibility of a no, of empty hands and a cold apartment – but then two strong arms are wrapped around his waist and Abed’s face is buried in his shoulder as he pulls Troy in, warm and tight. He’s nodding furiously, and Troy feels his fingers tapping a fast rhythm into his back.
The apartment is sweet and quiet, and nothing has come crashing down.
“Oscar-worthy confession,” Abed whispers hoarsely into Troy’s t-shirt after a minute. Despite everything Troy laughs – and then doesn’t, because Abed is lifting his head and not leaning away, their noses almost brushing, and –
Oh.
“Can I kiss you?” Troy whispers, and Abed nods, breath shaky and mouth curving up ever so slightly – and before Troy can think too much, he’s leaning forward and carefully pressing his lips to Abed’s.
It’s chaste and featherlight. There’s no searing heat or fireworks; instead, warm and safe and him all flood over Troy at the same time. For once, his heart doesn’t feel like it’s mixing up some emotionally explosive cocktail; everything in him settles into a nice glow, the whole world aligning just right as he kisses his very best friend.
He has to pull back after a few seconds, when the novel nearness and the last remnants of guilt suddenly feel too overwhelming for just one brain. “Is that okay?” he whispers. “I don’t want you to feel uncom–”
The feeling evaporates as Abed leans back in and kisses Troy once, twice, as gentle and quick as the first time. “Is that okay?” he echoes, half-teasing, and Troy’s heartbeat slowly launches into a joyful rhythm. He brushes his nose against Abed's, grinning and staying just out of reach in playful revenge.
“Troy,” Abed sighs, but it’s exasperation of the fondest kind and his cheeks are stained a divine shade of pink, so Troy laughs and kisses him again, and again, and again, and this time he doesn’t pull away. His hands slide up into Abed’s hair as their lips move together, slow and slick, his thumb brushing over Abed’s cheek, and the little noise Abed makes as he opens his mouth for Troy ignites something fiery in his chest, nestles behind his ribs, warms him from the inside out. Abed’s fingertips tremble on his jaw, holding him in place but never forcing him anywhere – which is really how they’ve always been, Troy thinks.
Shaky joy pumps through his veins, has him trembling even as they break apart to breathe together, and the blanket fort feels like it’s bathed in a glittery golden glow, even though they took down the fairy lights weeks ago. Troy thinks he might be glowing, too, lit up from the inside out.
God.
It’s the perfect moment to say something really cool, something poetic he knows Abed will appreciate, but he gets distracted by the tiny freckles on his nose. (Those are a really unfair move on nature’s part, he thinks. No one should get to be that cute.)
“I really like you,” he ends up saying after thinking about it for a minute. “I just like you so fucking much.”
Abed, as always, gets it anyway. “I know,” he beams, scrunching his nose in the most adorable way. “You told me you love me, and you said I feel like sunshine.” Then he’s kissing Troy again – no hesitation, just joy and gratitude. Something hot wells up in Troy’s throat.
“Come have dinner,” Abed whispers against his lips. “It’s your favorite, extra pine nuts and everything. I want us...” He falters, scrapes his throat. “I want us to have it together while it’s still warm. I want you to eat well. I love you, Troy. Come have dinner.”
The hot feeling grows, spills out over his cheeks.
“Okay,” he manages. “Okay.”
Abed smiles, sweet and bright and just for Troy, and scrambles to his feet, offering Troy his hand.
Taking it is so ridiculously, thrillingly, deliciously easy.
Just like that, Troy lets himself be pulled up, out of his hiding spot, and follows Abed into their home.