Super Special Ep: Party
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Aiden had thought that the disastrous drive home from the airport would be fatal to whatever small hope he had that Jamie might give him a second chance. Even at friendship, even just at being civil with each other.
Aiden did so badly with his new first impression. The drive from the airport to Ketterbridge was an absolute nightmare. He fucked up immediately, was mean and rough and - just like his old self.
That was the very last thing he intended, but Jamie’s sweet, warm eyes were on his face, and Aiden could smell that bright green scent that clung to his flannel…
Aiden has always found Jamie to be ridiculously cute, bringing down his defenses like they were fucking nothing. But they hadn’t seen each other in ages. Aiden wasn’t prepared to see what Jamie looked like, sounded like, and acted like now.
It was way, way too much for him, as it turned out. The second that Jamie’s beautiful amber eyes looked into Aiden’s, his composure melted like someone took a blowtorch to it.
Jamie somehow turning out to be even sweeter and sexier than Aiden had imagined wasn’t the only problem. When they knew each other before, Aiden had wanted Jamie to hate him. He hadn’t realized how terrifying it would be to spend time around Jamie when he actually wanted to make the guy like him. That was a whole different ball game, and one Aiden felt pitifully unprepared for.
He’s traveled all over the world, even to very dangerous places. He’s slept on benches in public parks and hitched rides with strangers and gotten lost in the Siberian taiga. He’s held people’s fates in his hands, over and over again. Still, he couldn’t remember ever being so unbearably nervous in his life as he was on that drive home with Jamie.
He was so far beyond regular nerves that his tortured brain shorted out and sent him directly into a blind panic.
After Jamie dropped him off, Aiden went straight to his room. He got into bed and laid very still, struggling to breathe, experiencing the world as fleeting sensory impressions rather than anything concrete.
As the panic slowly began to subside, and Aiden realized what had happened - he couldn’t believe what he’d done. How badly he’d fucked up.
What did Jamie say? Great to see that you’re just how I remember you, Aiden.
“No,” Aiden had whispered out loud, staring up at his bedroom ceiling in wide-eyed horror. “No, no no no no…”
It was hours and hours before he could pull the ragtag shreds of himself back together enough for him to get out of bed. He stood at the window of his room, looking in the direction Jamie had driven off in. He silently mouthed apologies until he sank to the floor and put his head in his hands.
He gave serious consideration to hitching a ride back to the airport, giving up. Misery is his comfort zone, anyways. It felt easier, safer.
But Aiden knows firsthand that love can power people to do impossible things, and this was one of those times.
Somehow he’d hung in there, and now he’s seen Jamie on two occasions since then. Those two times were enough to give Aiden back some hope. It’s not like he did the best job - he definitely went silent a few times, despite his best efforts - but it didn’t feel like Jamie had found his behavior unforgivable. As always, he was just - really, really nice about it.
They even laughed together, a little bit. Aiden rode the high of that for hours, afterwards.
It’s been a week since they went looking for an apartment for Aiden, and since Jamie helped him choose flowers for Kasey’s grave. Over the course of that week, Aiden walked back to the flower shop three times. But each time, his nerves overwhelmed him as soon as he laid eyes on Jamie through the window. He never went inside. He was thinking of trying again tomorrow, if Jamie didn’t come to Angie’s party tonight.
But there he is, right across the room.
A bunch of people are sitting perched on Angie’s kitchen counter, and Jamie is at the end of the row. Everyone sitting there is bouncing a little to the music, Jamie included.
He’s wearing a flannel, unbuttoned over a soft black t-shirt. His cheeks are glowing gently from laughing. His hair changes with the warm light, like brilliant copper woven with threads of gold. A strand of it falls over one of those bright, sweet, smiling eyes.
He laughs when Angie says something to him, and his freckled nose crinkles up with it.
Showers of something brilliant spill through Aiden’s heart.
He wants to go over there so badly, but he needs to be more subtle about this. He’s already gone directly to Jamie on more than one occasion tonight. The original plan was actually to not go directly to Jamie at all, to let the flow of the party bring them back together naturally. Aiden doesn’t want to come off like an eager puppy, following Jamie around.
But, as he’s already done a few times tonight - Jamie looks up, catches Aiden’s eyes on him, and smiles.
That bright stuff in Aiden’s heart sings happily, a feeling so unbelievably, heart-stoppingly good that it pulls him across the room. He pushes past the crowd, heading for Jamie.
Jamie sees him coming, and his smile widens. Aiden watches the way it rounds out his cheeks, how it reaches his gentle carnelian eyes and glows out through them.
The anxious voice in Aiden’s brain begging him to pump the brakes goes ignored. It’s like Jamie has his own gravitational field just for Aiden, and Aiden is helpless against it, can’t hope to fight it.
But his confidence is wavering again by the time he reaches Jamie. He does his best not to let his nerves show. Not to look too hesitant or fidget too much as he stops before the counter.
“Hey!” Angie says, smiling up at Aiden. “Aiden’s here! Jamie, you’ve met Aiden, right?”
She’s joking, of course, and Jamie rolls with it. He narrows his amber eyes up at Aiden and puts a fingertip to his dark red lips, like he’s not sure.
“Have I?” he asks, as if they haven’t talked multiple times tonight alone.
“Yeah, c’mon!” Angie nudges Jamie’s elbow. “Aiden Callahan? From high school? Tallest one in the whole school, devastatingly cute? Captain of the soccer team, took us to the league championships senior year?”
“Oh, now I remember,” Jamie says, and flips Aiden off.
Aiden reaches out to push down Jamie’s middle finger, hoping the heat in his face isn’t visible. Jamie sticks his tongue out at him instead, but then gives him a small, playful smile that sends Aiden’s heart cartwheeling.
“Angie,” someone calls. “Are people allowed to hang out on your roof? Because Noah’s definitely up there smoking a blunt.”
“Oh, come on. Really, Noah?” Angie slides down from the counter with a groan of irritation, then catches Jamie’s eye, shaking her head. “Some people never change, I guess.”
She weaves through the crowd, leaving Jamie and Aiden alone together. Aiden turns back to Jamie, trying not to let his eyes linger on the way the soft light slides down the delicate, handsome lines of his freckled face.
But before Aiden can do anything, a whole lot of things happen.
First, Jamie sets his beer down on the countertop and leans forward, like he’s about to say something to Aiden. A waft of that bright, natural green scent unexpectedly envelops Aiden. It’s like a meadow, a forest, wildflowers. Without meaning to, Aiden draws in a big, deep breath.
Second, the guy who was sitting on the other side of Angie gestures wildly in the middle of a story, sending his drink flying out of its cup.
And third, Aiden realizes that Jamie’s about to get hit with it. Without thinking, he reaches out one-handed, takes Jamie’s wrist, and swiftly pulls Jamie down off of the counter.
Jamie is caught completely by surprise, and though he lands on his feet, he stumbles a little. Aiden catches him, again without thinking. Jamie spreads a hand on Aiden’s chest to balance himself, seizes a fistful of his shirt.
The drink splashes down where he was sitting seconds before.
“Oh, shit,” Jamie sputters, realizing what happened. He takes a step back, then looks up at Aiden, smiling. “Thanks, man. You’ve got some fast fucking reflexes. Guess I should have known, though, right? Mr. League Championships, or whatever Angie said?”
Aiden doesn’t answer. His mind is focused on more urgent things, like the fact that for a brief moment, Jamie’s fingers were grasping a handful of Aiden’s shirt.
And Aiden’s arm was briefly wrapped around Jamie’s waist. His hand accidentally went under the flannel, and his palm felt the warmth of a lithe body beneath the black t-shirt.
Enormous, thrilling waves of wild exhilaration crash through Aiden, even after he haltingly lets Jamie go.
He needs a second to recover before he says anything, which unfortunately puts him into silence. Jamie looks up at him, waiting for a response to what he said, and Aiden desperately wishes that he could ask for a time-out. He lifts his snapback, clumsily runs a hand through his hair, and puts it back.
They’ve talked a few times, now, but Jamie isn’t used to Aiden’s silences.
“Are you alright?” he asks, the teasing expression on his face growing serious. His eyes flit to Aiden’s nose and cheeks. “Is it - too hot in here for you, or something?”
“No,” Aiden answers, and then, in a burst of quick honesty, “Kinda loud, though.”
“Oh.” Jamie thinks about that for a moment. “Well - you want to go outside? It’s probably quieter out there.”
Aiden nods immediately, surprised and relieved. Jamie smiles at him - god, fuck, is this guy cute - then beckons with a slight nod of his head.
Aiden follows him through the crowd, and together, they step out into the breezy summer night. It comes as instant relief. There are people out here, but not nearly as many, and the volume drops considerably.
Jamie looks around - scanning for somewhere they can talk alone, Aiden realizes - then leads the way over to the big tree in Angie’s backyard, which is swaying gently in the wind.
The cool air feels good, easier to breathe. The music is quieter out here, and the stars are out, scattered like thousands of jewels against a pitch-black sky.
Jamie pauses beneath the low-hanging boughs of the tree. His eyes are on a brown stem, which is hanging heavily off of a young, delicate branch.
Jamie pinches the stem between his fingers, neatly separating it from the branch, which springs up without the dead weight holding it down.
Aiden watches him, something stupid happening in his heart.
Jamie leans back against a thicker branch, spreads his palms behind himself on the rough bark, and gazes up at Aiden. It seems like he’s still waiting for Aiden to say something, and Aiden has finally pulled it together enough to do so.
“I’m officially nixing Mr. League Championships,” he informs Jamie. “No one is allowed to call me that, not even you.”
Jamie quirks an eyebrow. “Oh, no?”
“Yeah, no. I have to draw the line somewhere.”
“And you’ve decided to draw it at Mr. League Championships?”
“Mr. League Championships is actually a few miles past the line, if I’m being honest.”
Jamie laughs, and another one of those huge, all-consuming waves of sparkling excitement spills through Aiden.
He made Jamie laugh. It’s not the first time tonight, either. It’s been a few times, now.
“What’s the matter, dude?” Jamie asks, teasing him. “Don’t want to celebrate your accomplishments?”
Aiden answers before he can think too hard about it. “Nah, it’s just - I’d rather that my defining legacy be nothing to do with who I was in high school.”
He managed to look into Jamie’s eyes as he said it. Jamie looks back into his, blinking.
His joking expression falls away, and he tilts his head very slightly to the side. The starlight plays over his face, shimmers in his wide amber eyes.
Aiden’s heart trips and falls over itself.
“Seems like you really mean that,” Jamie says, in a much more serious voice.
Aiden looks at him, trying to communicate with his eyes.
Jamie blinks again, and Aiden hears a soft, bright little stumble in his note.
It surprises Aiden, floods his heart with hope. Maybe it means Jamie is liking the conversation, liking talking to him. Maybe it means that Aiden didn’t say the wrong thing, even though he didn’t take the time to think through his words first.
The thought sends another burst of nervous flutters through his chest. He breaks his gaze away from Jamie’s, stuffs his hands into his pockets. He’s afraid that the secret, magic glow in his heart might be starting to show through his eyes. He knows that his own note leapt up when he heard the change in Jamie’s.
The sound of their notes together is velvet soft, symphonic. It soothes Aiden’s soul, enwraps him like a warm blanket right out of the dryer.
Jamie always sounds beautiful, but it’s a very rare thing for Aiden to hear his own note like this.
It’s just you, he thinks at Jamie. You give me something to sing about.
The sound is beyond breathtaking, especially because Jamie’s laughter is still ringing in Aiden’s ears.
His mind rushes back to that first time on the beach, the first laugh he ever got out of Jamie. It was years and years ago, and yet Aiden remembers with perfect clarity what it sounded like. It was the sound of the irreversible movement of a faultline deep within Aiden’s heart.
Aiden has just realized that Jamie’s laughter hasn’t changed at all. It’s the exact same as it was that day at the beach, and - Aiden got to draw it out of him again. Got to hear it, got to see it on Jamie’s face, see it living in his eyes.
In Aiden’s mind, that is his actual defining accomplishment. Fuck the league championships.
It abruptly occurs to him that he's been silent for a while, and Jamie is looking at him, he’s - waiting. This whole time, he’s been waiting patiently. And he’s not making a face or doing anything to suggest that he’s annoyed about it, feeling awkward or uncomfortable. Just curious.
Deeply grateful, Aiden breaks into a warm smile as he looks down at Jamie.
“So - can I count on you to not call me that?” he asks. “Legendary though that day was?”
Jamie laughs again - holy shit, holy shit - and swats Aiden’s arm with the back of his hand.
“Here I was thinking you were gonna be grown and not brag about a soccer game you won in high school.” He clicks his tongue at Aiden. “Should’ve known better.”
“Believe me, dude, I’m not bragging about it,” Aiden informs him. “We actually didn’t even - wait, did you go to that game?”
Jamie arches a red eyebrow. “No.”
Aiden lets out a relieved breath. “Um - then yeah, we definitely won. No need to ask anyone here about it, but we totally did.”
Jamie stares up at him in surprise, then lets out another laugh. Aiden tries not to look too elated about it, but it’s hard. This is going so much better than he ever dared to hope.
“Not to change the subject from that league championship that we, um - absolutely crushed, took home the title, all that-”
“Right, yeah,” Jamie snickers.
“-but what did you do to the tree?”
Aiden points to the stem that Jamie pinched off of the budding branch. He’s been wondering.
“Oh.” Jamie clearly wasn’t expecting the question. “That shoot was just gonna slow down the growth, so I thought I’d just take care of it. I kinda can’t help myself, even with other people’s plants. Byproduct of working at the flower shop, probably.”
“What do you do there?” Aiden asks, curious. “Besides sell flowers? It seems like a lot more than that.”
Jamie seems surprised that he would ask. “You, um. You want to hear about the flower shop, and like, plants, and shit…?”
Aiden wants to hear about anything that Jamie is willing to tell him, so he nods.
“Fair warning, Callahan, you’re opening a door that’s very difficult to close again, asking me about plants. I could talk about that for like, forever.”
Perfect. “Yikes. Am I too late to walk that back?”
Jamie’s jaw drops open in faux-outrage, and now he and Aiden are both laughing. Together.
“You think that these muscles mean you can say anything to anyone, huh?” Jamie pushes himself up off of the tree, then gives Aiden’s bicep a squeeze. “Doesn’t work like that, though, I’m sorry to tell you. I’m not afraid of you. I can and will beat you up.”
This takes some time to sink in. Aiden’s audio processing went fuzzy the instant that Jamie’s fingers closed around his arm. The pressure and warmth of the fleeting touch stay with him long after Jamie’s hand drops away.
He finally figures out what Jamie said, and again, he answers without thinking. “That’s cute. Adorable, actually.”
“Excuse me,” Jamie laughs, stabbing a finger at Aiden’s chest. “Don’t think that you can just-”
He breaks off as someone calls his name across the backyard. A group of girls by the door are yelling for him to come choose the next playlist to put on. He shakes his head at them, then rolls his eyes when the shouting takes on a complaining, insistent tone.
“Shit.” He turns back to Aiden and makes a pouty face. “Sorry, looks like I’m needed.”
He reluctantly turns towards the house, and Aiden snags him by the elbow.
“Just for the record, I do want to hear about that stuff,” he says, all in a rush. “The shop, and the plants, so - can we talk about it later?”
Jamie stares at him, surprise in his amber eyes again. Then he breaks into a smile, nods at him.
As Aiden watches Jamie cross the yard, he finds himself grateful for a moment alone. Because he’s sinking into something like shock, only it doesn’t feel bad. It feels good.
He can’t believe that this is going so well. Jamie honestly looked like he really didn’t want to leave. He’s - kinda looked like that every time they’ve gotten split up from each other, tonight. Like he was genuinely happy talking to Aiden. And those smiles Aiden has been getting whenever they catch eyes across the room… If those aren’t sincere, then Aiden doesn’t know what the fuck is.
The dying hope that Aiden had brought with him tonight is rising again, flaring brilliantly. Jamie breathed life back into it, and it burns through Aiden now, warming his face, making his thundering heart go even faster.
It reaches unimagined, cosmic heights. Infinitely beautiful possibilities spill into Aiden’s mind before he can get a hold of himself. If he and Jamie can maybe be friends, then maybe they could be more, too. Aiden can only dream of what that would feel like, what it would be like…
With tremendous difficulty, Aiden forces himself back down to earth. He can’t let himself get carried away, let himself envision and hope for the dream outcome. That’s done nothing but fuck him up, in the past. Never works out, and in this case, realistically, it’s more than likely impossible.
But he thinks of Jamie’s laughter tonight, the way he’s been smiling at Aiden.
Aiden can’t help but picture himself walking right across the impossible, directly into Jamie’s arms.
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